A Comprehensive Guide to Filetype

Many of the terms and formats in the computer may sound bewildering to some of you who are new to the system. But instead of getting worked up over the different terminologies employed in computers you can look for help which is available in the system itself. Google.com is a very useful site which is of immense help in such a situation.

Google is the savior for many who want to find answers to the innumerable questions that keep popping up in their minds. Whatever query you have all you have to do is type the question as it occurs to you in the search box. For e.g. if you type "what is a .txt file" in the Google search box, you will get hundreds of answers to your query from which you can choose the correct one.

It is better if you try to find the answers in Google before looking in manuals or books. The first few answers will mostly be sufficient for you. Some of the most commonly used terms are given here to make you understand better.

Filetype- This indicates the type of file present. Any file in the system comes with a name followed by a dot and some alphabets following it like "sound. jpg" or "word.doc". The alphabets following the dot are the filetype and are termed as extension.

Filetypes usually denote the nature of the program that is used to open the particular file. .gif, .tif, .jpg and .bmp are some examples of the filetype which belong to picture files. Any program or viewer that is related to pictures can be opened by these filetypes.

Documents are usually opened by .doc, .txt, and .rtf and .docx filetypes. For sound and music files .mp3, .midi, .ra and .wma are used. All types of sounds that you hear while using your system belong to these filetypes.

For video format the file types used are .mpg, .avi, .wmv and .swf. The videos you view on You Tube and other video sites are in this category. WebPages use .html, .xhtml, .php, .htm and .css. You can see the .html in the address that is shown on the browser window of a particular website.

What we have seen so far are the common filetypes in use. There are also specialized types that are used for a particular program only. You need to have the specific program to open the file type.

.PDF- This stands for portable document format. Adobe is the particular type of program that can open these PDF files and also create them in the first place. It is used to share e-books, documents and other written data on the net due to its versatility and the files of this type are very small and therefore easy to maintain.

.pub- stands for Microsoft Publisher and comes with Microsoft's office version otherwise you have to buy it separately.

There are many other such filetypes available with the system that help in smooth functioning of the computer and if you have any doubt about them, all you have to do is search on Google and you are sure to get the help you need.