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When you are writing an article, retouching an image, building a webpage, listening to a song or watching your favorite film on your computer, you are dealing with files. In order for these files to be opened, read or modified with your favorite applications, they need to have a
format. A format is what enables an application to interpret the raw data contained in a file. A format, in other words, is the mode of representation of these data. Very often, file formats are marked in the extension of the file name: the three-letter suffix with which the file name ends. For instance
mypage.htm is a document written in HTML; There are specific formats for images (like JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIF, BMP), simple text (ASCII, often marked with the
.txt extension), for formatted text (HTML, RTF, DOC) and for printer-ready documents (PDF, PS).