COMPUTER FILE EXTENSIONS

Huh?

What are they?• File extensions are the two, three,

or four letters that come after the period in a computer file name:– myletter.doc (a Microsoft Word

document)– fileexten.ppt (the file name for this

presentation)

• How many different file extensions are there?– How many grains of sand on a beach?

Are they important?• File extensions tell a computer

what program to use to open the file. So, yes, they are very important.

• Do you need to memorize them? Will there be a test?– No – nothing like that . . . But

• If you are going to communicate with other people using a computer generated document, there are some things you need to know about file extensions.

“I can’t open this @#$% file!”

• Well, no, you probably can’t – because the person who sent it to you has a program that you don’t have. OR has a VERSION of a program that you don’t have.

• The most common one that Joy and I see is the .docx issue.– Microsoft Word has been using the file

extension .doc for Word documents pretty much ever since Word has existed . . .

– Until they created Windows 7 and the VERSION of Microsoft Word that came with Win 7 was Word 10.

– Microsoft decided it was such a great improvement that it needed a different file extension made JUST FOR IT!

– Other versions of Word would not be able to open it; the world would see the light and everyone would buy Office 10.

– NOT!!!!!

“I can’t open this @#$% file!”

• But people who bought Win7 went blithely about their business of sending out documents with the .docx file extension – (of course they never NOTICED the file

extension – who looks at file extensions?)

• And then the file would come to me or to Joy (and millions of other people) and we would see the X and know that difficulties lay ahead.

“I can’t open this @#$% file!”

• The solution was rather simple in the end: there is a suite of programs called Open Office.– Open Office is like a “generic” of

Microsoft Word:• it is free (so the price is right)• and it will open .docx files and even let you

save them as .doc if you want to• Of course if you don’t pay attention to how you

save it, you will find that your file now has a .odt at the end of it and if you try to send it back to your .docx person, they are going to say

• “I can’t open this @#$% file!”

File Extensions Matter• So it DOES matter what the

letters (and sometimes letters and numbers) are at the end of a computer file name.

• And if you know how to read them, you will find using your computer will not be quite so annoying.

• Here are some common file extensions and their real world meanings.

Some Common Definitions

• .exe – Executable file – this is the file that will start a program (mspub.exe would start the Microsoft Publisher program)

• .xls – this is a spreadsheet produced by Microsoft’s Excel program

• .xlsx – Microsoft’s Excel 10 and above• .txt – Text file - this is a generic, bare-bones

word processing file. It will have little if any formatting, but most any word processing program can read it. If you remember Notepad, you know .txt files.

• .jpg .jpeg, .png, .tiff, .gif – these are all digital image files. You will need Picture Viewer, Media Player, or a photo editor to open these files– BUT . . . You can INSERT them into a word

processor (Word, etc.) file and view them there if you don’t have a photo program.

Some Common Definitions• .mp3, .wav – music files

• .mov, .mpg – video file• .ged – gedcom file produced by a

genealogy program; this is like a generic file that lets you exchange genealogy files with people who have different genealogy programs.

• .paf – Personal Ancestral File – this was the original LDS program that many people used and some still use

• .zip – “Zipped” file – a larger file (or files) have been compressed (zipped up) into a .zip file; you will need something like Winzip to “unzip” the file and then you will need to “extract” the files inside it

Some Common Definitions

• .pdf – means Portable Document File and it requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to open it. Some programs can create .pdf files from documents created with other programs, like Word (Open Office can do this). – The nice thing about .pdf is that it will look

the same on all computers which is not always true of a Word document.

– If you do not have the same fonts on your computer that I have used in my document, Word will use a “generic” substitute to display my document on your machine.

– But .pdf will display the document on your machine and mine exactly the same.

Some Common Definitions

• .wmf – Windows Metafile, graphics files which can be opened by Microsoft programs

• .wks – Microsoft Works file• .htm, .html – A document created to be

viewed by an Internet browser such as Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox

• .com and .net – these are NOT file extensions; they are Internet routing terms (think of .com as COMmercial and .net as NETwork and you have an idea of how these routing terms work)

Conclusions• When you create a file, if you go to

“save as” instead of “save,” you can choose a different file extension than the default for your program if you need to.– There should be a drop down list that will

come up to let you save the file in another format

• If you can’t open a file that someone has sent, first check the file extension. You can even go on the Internet and look up specific file extensions and find out what program was used to create the file.

More Conclusions• To find out what file extensions your

computer can open, you can check in the “Folder Options” of your Control Panel– For systems through Windows 7, go to

START, then click on CONTROL PANEL, and then click on FOLDER OPTIONS. You will get a list of file extensions and the programs on your computer that use them.

– For Win 8, click the Windows button, then Control Panel, then Programs, then under “Default Programs” click “Make a file type always open in a specific program”

ONE SOLUTION(Not on your handout) I have found in the

past week that just saving as .doc instead of .docx may not be a perfect solution (thank you SO MUCH Microsoft!). But there is a solution to be sure that what people see on their end is what you see on your end – that is a .pdf file. These are not easy(cheap) to create as Adobe LIKES their program a WHOLE LOT ($$$$). But there is a program – FREE – that will create a .pdf from any Microsoft product. The program is Cutepdf. Download link is:

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.aspWhen installed, it comes up in your PRINTER LIST

and you just click print to Cutepdf and it saves it as a .pdf file. Clean, neat, and FREE!!

A FINAL NOTE• This is not necessarily file extension

related, but it is an essential for communication today. Please note that when you reply to an e-mail, you have a choice of replying JUST to the sender or of replying to ALL (everyone who got the message). It is best that you NOT set your default reply to “Reply All.” Set it to Reply and then when you NEED to reply to everyone, you can choose Reply All. This is just a matter of courtesy to other people; and whether we notice courtesy or not, we definitely notice a lack of courtesy!

• So be a courteous user:– Check who will be receiving your e-

mail– Check what kind of file you are

sending– And, above all, stay calm when your

computer refuses to open an attachment: you may not have the same program as the person who sent the file, but at least you now know what the problem is – and that is half the solution!