File formats and its Application Programs to open in PC

Different file formats and lots of application programs, what file to be use with which program, looks like jumble box for a new user of pc.

Here is solution for the confusion of different file types and their editing application software. Let us see in quick way.

Here I will not go in deep; it is just for operator level.

Let me first clear one General Funda used in pc : 

Each and every information resides in pc is in form of File on its hard disk.

These files are of two types.

1. Files used by system: called system file. User directly not in concern with these files. Their looks, name and structure depend upon Operating System of pc.
2. Files used by users and user application program: called normal data file, this is actual files directly or indirectly used by user. Their looks, name and structure depend upon application program.

User Programs: All those application programs which used by user for completing their job.

Associated program with file: It is a program marked for automatically opening a file(generally after double click) for viewing or editing. If any file is not associated or marked to open with certain program then after clicking, it will ask for program to open with.

Now if we exclude the technicality of file structure and look towards a file, it got two aspects:

1. Read or View a file :- it is also called opening a file.
2. Write or Edit a file :- it include all type of edit operation on file.

Doing any of above job there must be some associated software in pc which can perform it, which is known as Associated Application Program to that file.

For easy understanding I will give some example of file type and their associated program used in window os. [In other os it is different]

For understanding files in window more accurately one must know about its file name conventions.

    In window os files are named as

    File_name . ext
     
File_name

• Allowed - 255 character long, Alphabets, Digits, Space and some special characters.
• Not allowed – these special characters:-       ?  *  /  \   :  ;  <  >  

File names are not case sensitive in window. Exp – MYDOC.TXT, Mydoc.Txt, mydoc.txt all are same.

(.) : dot is used for marking separation between file name and extension.

ext : extension (generally 3 digit) - Extensions are used to indicate a file type.
Different program files are of different extensions e.g MS word file contains .doc and power point presentation file contains .ppt as extension.
It is helpful in associating application program with file.

Same naming convention is also true for folder naming except dot (.) and extension (ext) are not present in folder name.

Here is example of some common file type, name with extension and their associated program.

File type	Extension	Read/Write	Associated program	Description
Text	.txt	Read and Write both	Notepad Wordpad	It is a simple text file
Word	.doc	Read and Write both	Microsoft Word	It is text with formatting character file
PDF	.pdf	Read	Pdf Reader	Portable document format
		Write	Pdf Writer
Picture	.jpg , .gif, .png, .bmp,  .tif	Read	Photo Viewer	Photo file
	.psd	Write	Photo Editor, Paint, Adobe Photoshop
Presentation	.ppt	Read and Write both	Microsoft PowerPoint	Presentation file
Audio	.wma, .mp3	Read	Media player, Winamp, VLC player	Sound file
		Write	Sound Recorder,  Sound editor
Video	.mpg, .mov, .wmv, .avi, .3gp, .mp4	Read	Media player, VLC player	Video or movie file
		Write	Window movie maker, Pinnacle Studio
Compressed	.zip, .rar	Read and Write both	Win Zip and WinRar	Compresed file
Database	.dbf, .mdb	Read and Write both	MS Access, MS Excel, Oracle, SQL	Database file
Application	.exe	Directly run by OS
Programming Code	Html, VB, JavaScript, Java, Asp, PHP, CGS, CCS, C and Cpp	Read and Write by their respective programs