Document/Books File Formats and softwares

In our daily routine, we come across many documents/ books. These usually have to adhere to a specific file format in order to be useful. A file format is a text or binary format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers.

Some of the common Documents/ Ebooks we See:

.doc (Word document) — Structural binary format developed by Microsoft. .docx (Office Open XML) is XML-based standard for office documents, ISO standard. .OXPS (Open XML Paper Specification) All the above specified formats are supported by Microsoft word.

.Pdf – Open standard for documents exchange. ISO standards from 2001, 2005, 2008. It is readable on almost every platform with free or open source readers. Open source PDF creators are also available. We can view PDF files using Adobe reader, Adobe acrobat and acrobat.com. Here is a video regarding its differences

.Txt – ASCII nebo Unicode plaintext Text file.We can use it with notepad, a familiar one!

.prc; .mobi - Mobipocket e-book format is based on the Open eBook standard using XHTML and can include JavaScript and frames. It also supports native SQL queries to be used with embedded databases. There is a corresponding e-book reader, Mobipocket Reader.

.epub – EPUB/ OEBPS format is an open standard for e-books created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It combines three IDPF open standards. We have an Epub reader for these documents. 

.pdb – Palm media/ EREADER is a freeware program for viewing Palm Digital Media electronic books which use the pdb format used by many Palm applications. Versions are available for iPhone, PalmOS, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, desktop Windows, Macintosh,... The reader shows text one page at a time, as paper books do. Some Ereaders like nook, ereader.com supports these file types.

.lit  – Microsoft LIT are DRM-protected LIT files are only readable in the proprietary Microsoft Reader program, as the .LIT format, otherwise similar to Microsoft's CHM format, includes Digital Rights Management features. Other third party readers, such as Lexcycle Stanza, can read unprotected LIT files. Microsoft lit reader is the best software available for these files

.lrf; .lrx; .lrs – Broadband eBooks (BBeB) format is used by Sony Corporation. It is a proprietary format, but some reader software for general-purpose computers, particularly under Linux, have the capability to read it, like sony Ereader. 

.chm – Compiled Html format is a proprietary format based on HTML. Multiple pages and embedded graphics are distributed along with proprietary metadata as a single compressed file. Microsoft lit reader can be used.

.fb2 – FictionBook is a popular XML-based e-book format, supported by free readers such as FBReader, Okular,CoolReader, Bebook and STDU Viewer.

.ibooks – Apple Ibook format is created with the free iBooks Author ebook layout software from Apple Inc.. This proprietary format is based on the EPUB standard, with some differences in the CSS tags used in an ibooks format file, thus making it incompatible with the EPUB open standard.

.azw; .kf8 –  Amazon.com kindle also released Kindle Format 8, their new file format. The .kf8 file format supports a subset of HTML5 and CSS3 features, with some additional nonstandard features; the new data is stored within a container which can also be used to store a MOBI content document. Amazon Kindle has a proprietary software.

.exe or .html – Eveda / A multimedia ebook is media and book content that utilizes a combination of different book content formats. Adobe software are used for creating this type of ebook and adobe digital edition software supports these files

Surprisingly, this list only shows a small number out here. There are a variety of documents/ Ebooks, I have not mentioned because they are proprietary or software-specific, or because they are just not really used.