E-mailing with attachments: Windows File Types
File extensions are usually three, four or more letter codes at the end of computer file names that tell the operating system (Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 95/98/ME/2000,MAC OS X, Linux and Unix operating systems etc.) what kind of file they are dealing with.
Here is a list of the most common file types found on Windows and MacOSX platforms:
Picture formats:
JPEG: (Joint Photographic Experts Group) A format which compresses images by discarding colour information from the image. The higher the compression, the more detail is discarded. Mainly used for photographic images as the format supports 16.7 million colours.
GIF: (Graphic Interchange Format) A compression format which reduces colour information in an image. Can only support a maximum of 256 colours so is mainly used for drawings or images with large areas of a single colour. Has the ability to render any single colour transparent and can support simple animations.
PNG: (Portable Network Graphic) A format which is proving more popular as it supports images with 16.7 million colours and variable transparency. Can also support multiple layers of images. Files tend to be larger than JPEG or GIF
PSD: A file created by Photoshop
PSP: A file created by PaintShop Pro
TIF: An image format which is uncompressed and therefore can be quite a large file
SVG: (Scalable Vector Graphic) A drawing format becoming popular for use on the web
Audio Formats
WAV: (Waveform) An uncompressed audio format which can result in large file sizes
MP3 (MPEG, Layer 3) A highly compressed audio format which can be played on a wide range of devices, including computers. Can be highly compressed, but files can suffer from loss of detail the more they are compressed.
WMA: (Windows Media Audio) A compressed format created by Microsoft and therefore usually only playable on Windows platforms in programs such as Windows Media Player.
OGG, FLAC, MP4, AAC: Various other popular audio compression formats.
Video Formats
WMV: (Windows Media Video) A proprietary Windows compression format for use on Microsoft Windows platforms.
AVI: (Audio Video Interleave) Another Windows compression format created by Microsoft.
MP4/MPEG4/Quicktime: Common high quality compressed video formats.
XVid/DivX: Increasingly popular video compression formats
Text Formats
txt: (Text) A plain text format containing no formatting data, therefore any program which handles text can load the file. Smallest file type for text as it cannot contain any other files such as images.
RTF: (Rich Text Format) Another text format which contains basic formatting data and can be opened by a wide range of word processing applications.
DOC: (Word Document) Files produced by Microsoft Word which can contain a large number of other files such as images, sound, video etc. Such files can be quite large.
TE: (Textease) Files produced by Textease - not compressed.
PPT/PPS (PowerPoint): Files produced by Microsoft PowerPoint, again not compressed
Compression Formats
zip: (WinZip) A program which can compress other files but which can be opened by Windows XP and Vista.
rar: (WinRAR) Another file compression program, an alternative to WinZip.
Information
Do not try to send large files as e-mail attachments. It's unlikely that any mail system will allow files greater than 4Mb to be sent successfully. If you do need to send large files, use online facilities such as "YouSendIt" (http://www.yousendit.com/) which will allow files up to 100Mb to be mailed.
If you need to send a large number of files, consider using a program such as WinZip which can combine any number of files into one Zip file.
For more information on File Types, look at this article from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_file_types
If your files do not show the three character extension on your computer, follow these steps to display them. Open any folder on your computer and Select Folder Options... from the Tools menu at the top of the window. In the dialogue box which opens Select the View tab and deselect the option to Hide extensions for known file types before clicking on the OK button.
A word of warning! If your files now show the file type extension, you MUST include the extension when you try to rename any of them!