File formats

The most widespread image format. It uses lossy compression, giving small files that are ideal for photos and for publishing online.

Lossless image format with transparency support. The best choice for logos, screenshots and graphics containing text.

A modern Google format that weighs 25–35% less than JPG at the same quality. It supports transparency and animation.

The most efficient image format available today. It produces files up to 50% lighter than JPG, though it takes a little longer to encode.

The format the iPhone has used for photos since iOS 11. It is compact, but Windows and many websites cannot open it, so it is usually converted to JPG.

A classic format limited to 256 colours, best known for short looping animations.

An uncompressed Windows bitmap. It keeps full quality but produces very heavy files.

The standard for printing, scanning and professional archiving. It supports multiple pages in one file and lossless compression.

The icon format used by Windows and by website favicons. A single file can hold several sizes at once.

A vector graphic defined by formulas instead of pixels, so it scales to any size without losing sharpness. Ideal for logos and icons.

The universal document format. It looks identical on any device, operating system or printer, which is why it is the standard for sending finished documents.

Microsoft Word's format since 2007. It is editable, which is why it is what people ask for when a text still needs to be worked on.

An open text document used by LibreOffice and OpenOffice. It is a free standard equivalent to DOCX.

Text with basic formatting that opens in virtually any word processor, even very old ones. Useful as a compatibility format.

Plain text with no formatting at all. It is the lightest and most compatible format there is, and it never gets corrupted.

Text with simple markers such as # or ** to apply formatting. It is the standard for technical documentation and blogs.

The language web pages are written in. Any browser opens it with nothing to install.

The open ebook standard. The text reflows to fit the screen, which makes it far more comfortable to read than a PDF on an e-reader or phone.

Microsoft Excel's format since 2007. It stores formulas, multiple sheets and cell formatting.

Excel's old pre-2007 format. It still shows up in legacy files and is worth converting to XLSX.

The open LibreOffice and OpenOffice spreadsheet, the free equivalent of XLSX.

A plain-text table with values separated by commas. It is the format almost every program accepts for importing and exporting data.

Like CSV but separated by tabs. It avoids problems when the data itself contains commas.

The most compatible audio format in the world. It sounds good, takes little space, and plays on absolutely any device.

Uncompressed, lossless audio. It is the working format for recording and editing, though it takes a lot of space.

A free, patent-free audio format. At the same file size it sounds slightly better than MP3.

Compressed audio with no quality loss whatsoever. It takes half the space of a WAV and sounds exactly the same.

MP3's successor, with better quality at the same size. It is the format used by YouTube, Apple and most streaming services.

Apple's audio container, used by iTunes and iPhone voice memos. Inside, it usually holds AAC audio.

The most efficient codec for voice and music at small sizes. It is what WhatsApp and video calls use.

The universal video format. It plays on any phone, TV or browser without installing codecs.

A free video format built for the web. It is lightweight and plays in every modern browser.

A very flexible container that holds multiple audio tracks and subtitles in one file. Common for films and TV series.

Apple's video format, the one the iPhone records in. It causes trouble on Windows, so it is usually converted to MP4.

The classic Windows video container. Still very common in older files, though it produces large ones.

The most universal compression format. Windows, Mac and Android open it with nothing installed.

The classic Linux package. It groups several files into one, usually combined with GZIP compression.

The standard compression on Linux and web servers. It compresses a single file very effectively.

7-Zip's format, with a better compression ratio than ZIP. Windows cannot open it out of the box.

WinRAR's proprietary format, very common in downloads. It can be extracted freely but not created without a licence.

The standard format for exchanging data between programs and APIs. It is human-readable and easy to process.

A tag-based structured data format. Widely used in enterprise systems, e-invoicing and configuration files.

A data format designed to be comfortable for people to read and write. It is the usual choice for configuration files.