File Formats Reference

Portable Network Graphics

PNG is a lossless raster graphics format with full transparency support. Ideal for web graphics, logos, and images requiring a transparent background.

Joint Photographic Experts Group

JPG is the most widely used lossy image format, offering excellent compression for photographs and complex images with millions of colors.

Joint Photographic Experts Group

JPEG is the full name for the JPG format — a lossy image format ideal for photographs and complex scenes with smooth color gradients.

Web Picture Format

WebP is Google's modern image format supporting both lossy and lossless compression, transparency, and animation — typically 25–35% smaller than equivalent PNG or JPG.

Graphics Interchange Format

GIF supports animation and transparency but is limited to 256 colors. Widely used for short animations, memes, and simple graphics.

Bitmap Image File

BMP is an uncompressed raster format that stores raw pixel data. Files are large but perfectly lossless and widely supported on Windows.

Tagged Image File Format

TIFF is a flexible, lossless format used in professional photography, printing, and document scanning. Supports multiple pages and layers.

Scalable Vector Graphics

SVG is an XML-based vector format that scales to any resolution without quality loss. Perfect for icons, logos, and UI illustrations.

Windows Icon Format

ICO is the standard format for Windows application icons and browser favicons, supporting multiple resolutions in a single file.

AV1 Image File Format

AVIF is a cutting-edge image format based on the AV1 codec, offering better compression than WebP and JPEG with support for transparency and HDR.

High Efficiency Image Container

HEIC is Apple's default iPhone camera format, offering twice the compression of JPEG while maintaining the same visual quality.

Portable Document Format

PDF is the universal document format preserving fonts, images, and layouts across all devices and operating systems.

Microsoft Word Document

DOCX is Microsoft Word's open XML format, supporting rich text, images, tables, headers, and complex formatting.

Plain Text File

TXT is the simplest document format containing only plain text with no formatting. Compatible with every device and application.

HyperText Markup Language

HTML is the foundation of the web, using markup tags to define structure and content. Ideal for web pages and email templates.

Markdown Document

Markdown is a lightweight markup language using plain text formatting syntax, widely used for documentation, README files, and blogs.

Comma-Separated Values

CSV is a plain text format for tabular data, using commas to separate values. Universally supported by spreadsheet and database applications.

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet

XLSX is Microsoft Excel's modern format supporting formulas, charts, multiple sheets, and rich cell formatting.

Rich Text Format

RTF is a legacy rich text format developed by Microsoft, supporting basic formatting like bold, italic, and fonts while remaining cross-platform.

JavaScript Object Notation

JSON is a lightweight data-interchange format that is human-readable and easy for machines to parse. The standard format for web APIs.

MPEG Audio Layer III

MP3 is the most universal audio format, using lossy compression to reduce file size while maintaining good sound quality. Supported everywhere.

Waveform Audio File Format

WAV is an uncompressed audio format developed by Microsoft and IBM, delivering studio-quality audio at the cost of large file sizes.

Ogg Vorbis

OGG Vorbis is a free and open-source audio format offering better quality than MP3 at similar bitrates. Popular in web audio and gaming.

Advanced Audio Coding

AAC is Apple's standard audio format, offering superior quality to MP3 at the same bitrate. Used by Apple Music, YouTube, and most streaming services.

Free Lossless Audio Codec

FLAC is a lossless audio format that compresses audio without any quality loss. Used by audiophiles for archiving music in perfect quality.

MPEG-4 Audio

M4A is Apple's MPEG-4 audio container, typically encoding AAC audio. Files are smaller than MP3 at similar quality levels.

MPEG-4 Part 14

MP4 is the most universal video format, combining H.264/H.265 video with AAC audio. Supported by virtually every device, browser, and platform.

WebM Video Format

WebM is an open, royalty-free video format developed by Google for web use, using VP8/VP9 or AV1 video codecs. Ideal for HTML5 video.

Audio Video Interleave

AVI is Microsoft's legacy container format supporting various codecs. While older, it remains common in Windows environments and older media players.

Apple QuickTime Movie

MOV is Apple's QuickTime container format, widely used for video editing and high-quality recordings on macOS and iPhone.