Most recent edit on 2006-11-02 09:03:33 by BaZtien []
Additions:
Deletions:
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2006-11-02 09:01:04 by BaZtien []
Page view:
Short list of formats
This is a list of all described formats in
www.openformats.org∞.
Whenever possible, just avoid using formatted text: using plain text (either ascii or .txt format) guarantees complete access for everyone, regardless of their software, their operating system or the computer they are using. In your emails, if what is important to you is the content and not the formatting, send the text directly in the body of your message instead of sending it as an attachment.
HTML format is the standard language for the web, and it was defined by an standardizing international organization (the W3_Consortium). HTML is a flexible universal format, rich and compact. Native HTML (with no javascript) can carry no virus and can be read on any platform. Note: The HTML code produced by Word is semi-proprietary, and it is prone to include information which cannot be displayed on all platforms.
TeX is both a language to typeset documents and a programming language. Originally written to typeset mathematical documents in a professional manner, it is now used in many other areas.
LaTeX is also a typsetting and programming language. It's actually a simplified version of
TeX which enables top level instruction manipulation, just as HTML is a simplified version of SGML.
DVI. A
TeX or
LaTeX source file must be compiled. The result of this compilation is in DVI format, readable on any platform. Most of the time, the result of the compilation will, in turn, be converted to PDF or PS.
OpenDocument is:
- An open, XML-based file format.
- An open standard, supported by the OASIS (IBM, SUN, Openoffice.org team) and ISO standards groups.
- The default file format for OpenOffice.org 2.0 and KOffice 1.4.
- A top prospect for an official format for the European Commission.
- Our best chance to fight vendor lock-in associated with proprietary formats.
RTF format was introduced by Microsoft to create a standard format for text formatting. It offers the same format variety than DOC, all the while being (at least in its native version) a format with public specifications. Most word-processing programs are capable or reading and writing this format, but because certain programs tend to use proprietary extensions of this format, its compatibility remains uncertain.
The
PostScript format is a language describing a page, developped by Adobe in 1985, created for printing and widely used in typography. One of its advantages is that it is universal (it is independent from the format of the original file) and it cannot carry viruses. Contrary to PDF format,
PostScript does not allow to copy text viewed on a screen to paste it in another application. It can be generated with compatible printers (option: 'print in file') and with the
GhostScript program.
PDF format (Portable Document Format), developed by Adobe, is a document presentation format, the specifications for PDF are available on the web. It is a universal format (regardless of which platform and software are used to generate it), compatible with any printer, flexible (you can substitute fonts, add links, bookmarks, notes) and legible onscreen with the appropriate plugins. It can be generated with Adobe Acrobat, with the open source software
GhostScript or created on the fly in a Unix environment.
JPEG is one of the most efficient picture compression formats currently available. This open format is very light and allows you to determine the rate of data compression, knowing that the higher the compression rate, the lower the quality of the picture. JPEG follows a process of cumulative compression: the image is clearly affected if you open it and save it with a new compression rate.
PNG-8 and PNG-24 are two open formats which are also license-free. They represent the principal alternative to the GIF format, specially created to optimise the display of images on internet. They allow data compression without loss of information and are supported by most browsers.
For vectorial formats, there now exists an open format thanks to the work of a research group created in 1998 by the W3_Consortium: the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). This is a format based on other public standards (XML, CSS, HTML) which allows for the creation of vectorial images which are re-scaleable, perfect to save bandwidth, to optimise layout and to allow zooming without losing the quality of the image. Graphics created in SVG can be dynamic or interactive, can group, transform, create graphic objects within other objects and be given style attributes.
Ogg Vorbis is a lossy audio compression format which is totally open source and with a free license. It was developed to replace all the proprietary formats currently used for audio compression (MP3, WMA, etc.).
Musepack is an audio format which guarantees good quality. It is not lossless, but it is protected in a way that makes it impossible to notice the difference between the original wave archive and the MPC archive which is smaller in size.
FLAC is a lossless compression format that is totally open. It can be used with its native container or with the Ogg container of the Xiph.Org Foundation.
MS Word document format is a semi-trasparent proprietary format developped by Microsoft. Part of the data it encodes are accessible, while most of them are opaque.
MS Excel document format is a proprietary format developped by Microsoft. The best open-format alternative to save and publish huge arrays of string/ values is to use plain text with separators ("Comma Separated Values" - CSV). CSV format an be read, modified and saved by any database edition software, moreover this format only requires few disk space.
More and more slide shows available online were created using MS Power-Point proprietary format. The best open-format solution to publish slide shows is PDF format.