File format in the context of "XML"

An image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be compressed or uncompressed. If the data is compressed, it may be done so using lossy compression or lossless compression. For graphic design applications, vector formats are often used. Some image file formats support transparency.

Raster formats are for 2D images. A 3D image can be represented within a 2D format, as in a stereogram or autostereogram, but this 3D image will not be a true light field, and thereby may cause the vergence-accommodation conflict.

A video file format is a type of file format for storing digital video data on a computer system. Video is almost always stored using lossy compression to reduce the file size.

A video file normally consists of a container (e.g. in the Matroska format) containing visual (video without audio) data in a video coding format (e.g. VP9) alongside audio data in an audio coding format (e.g. Opus). The container can also contain synchronization information, subtitles, and metadata such as title. A standardized (or in some cases de facto standard) video file type such as .webm is a profile specified by a restriction on which container format and which video and audio compression formats are allowed.

An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data (excluding metadata) is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size, often using lossy compression. The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but it is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data format with a defined storage layer.

Computer-aided translation (CAT), also referred to as computer-assisted translation or computer-aided human translation (CAHT), is the use of software, also known as a translator, to assist a human translator in the translation process. The translation is created by a human, and certain aspects of the process are facilitated by software; this is in contrast with machine translation (MT), in which the translation is created by a computer, optionally with some human intervention (e.g. pre-editing and post-editing).

CAT tools are typically understood to mean programs that specifically facilitate the actual translation process. Most CAT tools have (a) the ability to translate a variety of source file formats in a single editing environment without needing to use the file format's associated software for most or all of the translation process, (b) translation memory, and (c) integration of various utilities or processes that increase productivity and consistency in translation.

A computer file is a collection of data on a computer storage device, primarily identified by its filename. Just as words can be written on paper, so too can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and transferred between computers and mobile devices via removable media, networks, or the Internet.

Different types of computer files are designed for different purposes. A file may be designed to store a written message, a document, a spreadsheet, an image, a video, a program, or any wide variety of other kinds of data. Certain files can store multiple data types at once.

An electronic document is a document that can be sent through non-physical means, such as telex, email, and the internet. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal—the final data output was always on paper. However, the development of computer networks has made it so that in most cases it is much more convenient to distribute electronic documents than printed ones. The improvements in electronic visual display technologies made it possible to view documents on a screen instead of printing them (thus saving paper and the space required to store the printed copies). However, using electronic documents for the final presentation instead of paper has created the problem of multiple incompatible file formats. Even plain text computer files are not free from this problem—e.g. under MS-DOS, most programs could not work correctly with UNIX-style text files (see newline), and for non-English speakers, the different code pages always have been a source of trouble.

Even more problems are connected with complex file formats of various word processors, spreadsheets, and graphics software. To alleviate the problem, many software companies distribute free file viewers for their proprietary file formats (one example is Adobe's Acrobat Reader). The other solution is the development of standardized non-proprietary file formats (such as HTML and OpenDocument), and electronic documents for specialized uses have specialized formats—the specialized electronic articles in physics use TeX or PostScript.

A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally, they refer to small, battery-powered devices utilising flash memory or a hard disk for storing various media files. MP3 players has been a popular alternative name used for such devices, even if they also support other file formats and media types other than MP3 (for example AAC, FLAC, WMA).

Generally speaking, PMPs are equipped with a 3.5 mm headphone jack which can be used for headphones or to connect to a boombox, home audio system, or connect to car audio and home stereos wired or via a wireless connection such as Bluetooth, and some may include radio tuners, voice recording and other features. In contrast, analogue portable audio players play music from non-digital media that use analogue media, such as cassette tapes or vinyl records. As devices became more advanced, the PMP term was later introduced to describe players with additional capabilities such as video playback (they used to also be called "MP4 players"). The PMP term has also been used as an umbrella name to describe any portable device for multimedia, including physical formats (such as portable CD players) or handheld game consoles with such capabilities.

DjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, indexed color images, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy compression for bitonal (monochrome) images. This allows high-quality, readable images to be stored in a minimum of space, so that they can be made available on the web.

DjVu has been promoted as providing smaller files than PDF for most scanned documents. The DjVu developers report that color magazine pages compress to 40–70 kB, black-and-white technical papers compress to 15–40 kB, and ancient manuscripts compress to around 100 kB; a satisfactory JPEG image typically requires 500 kB. Like PDF, DjVu can contain an OCR text layer, making it easy to perform copy and paste and text search operations.