Lecture 12 - File Formats

• What is a format?
• Types of file formats
• Reasonable (and considerate) use of file formats
• Why bother?

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What is a format?

• Format: noun. 1. the shape and size of a book, periodical, etc.
  2. the style or manner of an arrangement or procedure.
  3. [Computing] a defined structure for holding data etc. in a record for
  processing or storage.
  
  
  
• A specific way of storing information
• A way of storing all the extra information about your data:
  • Font
  • Colour
  • Size
  • Printer requirements
  • Application-specific information
  • ...
• Often only readable by a specific application

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Types of File Formats

• Word Documents
• Excel Documents
• Powerpoint documents
• HTML documents
• Latex documents
• Plain text documents
• Rich text format
• PDF documents
• ...

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Reasonable use of File Formats

• Proprietary formats require the receiver to have a particular application
  • What's a proprietary format?
    • Any format used by a particular application to store its data
    • Specifically: Any format owned by a particular company
    • Often not designed to be portable
    • Often designed to maintain/strengthen a company's grip on the market
  • Word documents
  • PDF files
  • ...etc
  • Not HTML
  • (Why not?)
• When is it ok to use a proprietary format?
  • When formatting is critical to your document
• When is it not ok?
  • When your document is just text
  • When text would do just as well

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Why does it matter?

• Almost anything that's not plain text can carry a virus
  • Especially Word documents
  • Even some types of images have been found to have security issues
  • Many organisations now refuse to let attachments into their networks at all
  • So your file might never get through, and you might never know
• Many proprietary formats (especially MS formats) carry extra information
  • Do you know what you're really transmitting?
• Proprietary formats require the receiver to have a particular application
• Documents with complex formatting are usually biggger
• Opening an attachment requires extra effort
  • The effort may be small, or large (depending on the mailer used)
  • It's an imposition
  • It's usually unnecessary
  • It's a waste of bandwidth.

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