File extensions, a brief explanation
Since we started using computers we are aware of the existence of various
types of files, we differentiate from each other according to the
extension present; the extension is nothing more than a series of two or
three characters placed after the file name, separated from this with one
point. Essentially, all computer files have a specific extension, the
extension allows the systems and software know what to do with a specific
file while tells users what program should open these documents.
We use extensions daily but, we have to start to think what they mean;
Below is a summary of the meaning of the extensions most commonly used
today.
General System extensions
.COM ---> MS-DOS Application
.DAT ---> Data, database
.DB ---> Data Base (database)
.INI ---> Initial (initial setup files)
.TMP ---> Temporary (temporary files)
.TXT ---> Text (plain text files, unformatted)
Extensions for Office Documents
.DOC, .DOCX, ---> Document (Word documents)
.XLS ---> Excell Acronym
.EPS ---> Encapsulated Postscript
.PPT ---> Powerpoint
Extensions for Document Imaging
.JPG / .JPEG ---> Joint Photographic Experts Group
.GIF ---> Graphic Interchange Format
.PNG ---> Portable Net Graphics
Extensions for Audio Files
.MP3 ---> Short for MPEG Audio Layer 3
.WMA ---> Windows Media Audio
.WAV ---> WAVE Form
File extensions for Video
.AVI ---> Audio Video Interleaved (Audio / Video Integrated)
.MPG /.MPEG ---> Moving Picture Expert Group
.MOV ---> Movie, usually associated with files that open with Quick
Time, the .MOV can sometimes be replaced by .QT (Quick Time)
.WMV ---> Windows Media Video
Extensions for Web Pages
.HTM ---> Hyper Text Markup
.PHP ---> Originally Personal Home Page Tools currently Hypertext
Preprocessor but maintains the same original acronym.
.PDF ---> Portable Document File
.JS ---> Java Script
Below we have an example of how MS Windows show different files extensions and icons
This is just a small sample of the meanings of file extensions, certainly,
the list is almost endless and every day more extensions are added, know
the most common will help us know what material we are working and even
allow us to identify suspicious files; for those who want a comprehensive
compilation of all extensions (or at least most) we recommend visiting
this List Extensions