Document file formats
Files made to be read: fixed pages ready to print, word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, ebooks, plain and marked-up text, and the fonts that display them.
Subcategories
Page description
Pages laid out exactly, ready to view and print the same everywhere.
7 formatsWord processing
Editable documents of styled text, tables and pictures.
8 formatsSpreadsheet
Workbooks of cells, formulas and charts.
7 formatsPresentation
Slide shows with layouts, media and speaker notes.
6 formatsEbook
Books packaged for reading apps, with text that reflows to fit the screen.
6 formatsText & markup
Plain text, and text with light formatting marks that stay readable as written.
7 formatsFont
Typefaces: the outlines of every character and the rules for setting them.
8 formatsAll document file formats
| Format | Name | About | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page description | |||
.DJVU | DjVu | Scanned pages split into a text mask and colour layers, each compressed its own way. | Open |
.OXPS | OpenXPS document | The Ecma standard form of XPS, saved by Windows 8 and later. | Open |
.PCL | Printer Command Language | HP’s printer language: escape sequences a driver sends to a laser printer. | Open |
.PDF | Portable Document Format | Fixed pages that look the same everywhere, built from numbered objects. | Open |
.PLT | HP-GL plot file | Pen plotter commands in plain text: two-letter instructions that draw lines. | Open |
.PS | PostScript | Adobe’s page description language: a program that draws each page. | Open |
.XPS | XML Paper Specification | Microsoft’s fixed pages: XML page descriptions, fonts and images in a ZIP package. | Open |
| Word processing | |||
.DOC | Word 6.0 and 95 document | Word 6.0 and 95 documents: single-byte text in one compound file stream. | Open |
.DOC | Word 97–2003 document | Word’s binary document from Word 97 to 2003: streams in a compound file. | Open |
.DOCX | Word document | Microsoft Word’s ZIP package of XML parts, standard since Word 2007. | Open |
.HWP | Hangul Word Processor document | Korea’s Hangul word processor document: compressed record streams in a compound file. | Open |
.ODT | OpenDocument Text | The open standard word processing document: XML parts in a ZIP package. | Open |
.PAGES | Apple Pages document | Apple Pages document: a ZIP package of IWA files and media. | Open |
.RTF | Rich Text Format | Formatted text written as readable control words, read by almost every word processor. | Open |
.WPD | WordPerfect document | WordPerfect’s document: a WPC header, then text mixed with formatting codes. | Open |
| Spreadsheet | |||
.NUMBERS | Apple Numbers spreadsheet | Apple Numbers spreadsheet: tables and charts on a canvas, stored in IWA files. | Open |
.ODS | OpenDocument Spreadsheet | The open standard spreadsheet: tables of cells as XML in a ZIP package. | Open |
.WK1 | Lotus 1-2-3 worksheet | Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2 worksheet: a run of records, one per cell. | Open |
.XLS | Excel 5.0 and 95 workbook (BIFF5) | Excel 5.0 and 95 workbooks: BIFF records in a compound file’s Book stream. | Open |
.XLS | Excel 97–2003 workbook (BIFF8) | Excel 97–2003 workbooks: BIFF records and a shared string table in a compound file. | Open |
.XLSB | Excel binary workbook | Excel’s binary workbook since 2007: the XLSX package with binary records instead of XML. | Open |
.XLSX | Excel workbook | Microsoft Excel’s ZIP package of sheets, shared strings and styles. | Open |
| Presentation | |||
.KEY | Apple Keynote presentation | Apple Keynote presentation: a ZIP package of IWA files and media. | Open |
.ODP | OpenDocument Presentation | The open standard presentation: slides as XML pages in a ZIP package. | Open |
.POTX | PowerPoint template | A PowerPoint template: theme, masters and layouts in a PPTX-style package. | Open |
.PPSX | PowerPoint show | A PPTX presentation marked to open straight into the slide show. | Open |
.PPT | PowerPoint 97–2003 presentation | PowerPoint’s binary presentation before PPTX: nested records in a compound file. | Open |
.PPTX | PowerPoint presentation | PowerPoint’s ZIP package of slides built on layouts and masters. | Open |
| Ebook | |||
.AZW3 | Kindle Format 8 ebook | Amazon’s Kindle Format 8: HTML5 and CSS books in the MOBI record container. | Open |
.CBR | Comic book RAR archive | A comic as a RAR archive of page images, read in file name order. | Open |
.CBZ | Comic book ZIP archive | A comic as a ZIP archive of page images, read in file name order. | Open |
.EPUB | EPUB ebook | The open ebook standard: XHTML chapters and a package document in a ZIP file. | Open |
.FB2 | FictionBook | An ebook as one XML file: description, sections of text and Base64 images. | Open |
.MOBI | Mobipocket ebook | Mobipocket and early Kindle ebooks: compressed text records in a Palm database. | Open |
| Text & markup | |||
.ADOC | AsciiDoc | Plain text markup for technical documents and books, built by Asciidoctor. | Open |
.HTML | HyperText Markup Language | The language of web pages: text marked up with tags that browsers display. | Open |
.MD | Markdown | Readable plain text with light marks for headings, emphasis, lists and links. | Open |
.ORG | Org mode document | Emacs Org mode’s plain text outlines: headlines, tasks, tables and code blocks. | Open |
.RST | reStructuredText | Readable plain text markup with directives, used by Sphinx and Python’s docs. | Open |
.TEX | LaTeX and TeX source | Plain text with backslash commands that TeX and LaTeX typeset into pages. | Open |
.TXT | Plain text | Characters and line endings, nothing more, in an encoding the file rarely names. | Open |
| Font | |||
.BDF | Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format | A bitmap font in plain text: each glyph as rows of hexadecimal pixels. | Open |
.FON | Windows bitmap font | Windows bitmap fonts: FNT font resources inside a 16-bit NE executable. | Open |
.OTF | OpenType font | The TrueType container extended with PostScript outlines and typographic features. | Open |
.PFB | PostScript Type 1 font | Adobe’s PostScript font: cubic outlines in an encrypted PostScript program. | Open |
.TTC | TrueType collection | Several TrueType or OpenType fonts in one file, sharing tables they have in common. | Open |
.TTF | TrueType font | Apple’s font format of quadratic outlines and hinting, in a directory of tables. | Open |
.WOFF | Web Open Font Format | A web font: TrueType or OpenType tables, each compressed with zlib. | Open |
.WOFF2 | Web Open Font Format 2 | A web font: TrueType or OpenType tables compressed together with Brotli. | Open |