Nowadays you all are using a computer desktop, laptop, tablet, your android or smartphone and so many other electronics softwares. You also do conversation with your friends, relatives, teachers, family members in verbal as well as written mode.
Also, you communicate to your friends, relatives and family members via letters, sms, and text messages.
For such purposes you use emails, social media, print and electronic media. Sometimes you send applications, formal letters to government offices and you send your CV to any department or private organizations. On the other hand you receive letters from them. You use the printed text in different formats. There are different document formats used in the present time.
Why is it important to know the different types of file formats
You should be aware of which document file format suits your requirements. To know the different types of file format is only to make you aware of various file formats, their applications and your needs. There are a few software programs or emails that only accept a particular file format. You see sometimes government offices accept only certain types of file attachments. So it is important to know different types of file formats.
There are many types of document file formats available. I think the tally goes upto 21. If we discuss all file formats here the article will go more lengthy. Instead of knowing all these 21 document file formats we discuss here a few commonly used formats. Following are some commonly used document files;
PDF file Format
This is the most commonly used document file format. PDF stands for portable document format. This file securely preserves your documents and data as original for a long time across the different destinations or platforms. It maintains the original layout of your file. This file can not be edited. It means whatever you have written and saved in this file is totally preserved. Only you can edit, modify, add or delete its content partly or wholly. You prepare a document file, convert or save it into a pdf format and send it through an email to your destination friend or office. You can also print a pdf file.
DOC and DOCS word document
Microsoft has created a best file format known as doc and docs document format. It is a standard file format in the word processing software. Almost all government offices, private sector companies, publications, universities, colleges and individuals use this format in general. You can create a file in doc format, edit it and share to your friends.
At present all HR departments of the public and private sector ask to send your CV in DOC file format. Interdepartmental communication also prefers this file format. This format has made sharing easy of long files like books etc.
HTML and HTM file format
HTML and HTM stands for hypertext markup language. This type of file format is used by developers for creating their websites or web content. During online work you can use this type of file format. You can change the contents or text of various items on a website. You can change the font and layout of the text during online working. For developing your website you may alter the language of your webpage, its text, font color and layout.
XLS and XLSX file format
Microsoft has developed excel spreadsheets files for different data and graphs representation. This is the most commonly used file format for a variety of information. You can gather a lot of data in a sheet as per your requirement. You can make a comparative statement for a product for different suppliers and select the best one for your requirement. Similarly, you can make a list or table of a class for their examination Marks achieved in each subject, their attendance and study the performance of each student during the year.
TXT. file format(TEXT)
Text (TXT) file is a simple document file format. In this file format you can write notes, text, dictation or instructions like a simple text. Different computers and softwares use this format .
RTF. file format
RTF stands for rich text format. This format was developed by Microsoft in 1987 for Microsoft products. There are various different revisions of this format. Most word processing software support RTF format to import and export some RTF specifications. Those may direct edit, which make it a “common” format between otherwise incompatible word processing software and operating systems.
There are other file formats like image file format, video file format, presentation file formats and audio file formats. Here we only discussed document file formats. In document file formats DOC and DOCS files are mostly used these days for letters, notes, books writing, articles writing etc. And for table work we use the excel file format. These two types of file formats are most commonly used these days. These formats are easy and accessible for a simple computer literate person. Pdf file format is general. You can simply save your doc and excel file in a pdf format.
So this is all about document file format in short. You may gather more information about them by visiting Microsoft website for their products.