Internet File Formats with CD-ROM

by Tim Kientzle

Provides a detailed file format dictionary to help you understand most of the major file formats found on the Internet. Comes with a CD-ROM jam-packed with programs and tools to help you work with the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 188357756X
• ISBN13: 9781883577568
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
• Length: 397 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

One of the best computer references I own.

This book has a basic section on a number of different file formats and how to code in a few different languages and scripts. Includes a CD-ROM with conversion utilities and editing software.

A valuable reference for the many internet file formats.

The Internet is a virtual bazaar of file formats, some rare and exotic species sharing space with the commonly known ones. Apart from curiosity about the unusual, users sometimes find themselves confronted with incoming files of some unknown type, or being required to generate files in a particular format. Graphics, video, sound, and other related file formats especially require some kind of reference to assist in finding the right tools for creation, conversion, or viewing/playing. File format literature is limited and, because of the limited market, those books that are published do not seem to be candidates for new editions. We have to be thankful to Coriolis for Internet File Formats, even though there have been some changes since its publication in 1995. However, the author includes plenty of information about Internet sites where the latest information is likely to be found. Professional application developers and programmers should find it a useful reference, especially for tracking down detailed technical information, but the book's real audience is users: those engaged in the graphics arts, or who are involved in activities such as constructing a Web site with state-of-the-art applications, and those who find themselves confronted with strange file formats. The book covers UNIX, Mac, DOS, and Windows platforms and is accompanied by a hybrid CD with software and documentation. A chapter in the introductory section, Researching File Formats, discusses the problem of determining the format of a given file and lists URLs and ftp sites where information is to be found. The chapter is brief, but covers the topic well. The main part of the book is divided into six parts: Text and document formats, Graphics formats, Compression and archiving formats, Encoding formats, Sound formats, Movie formats The Text & amp; Document Format part opens with a chapter on the nature of text, discussing the problems of character set variation and the use of markup languages. That is followed by chapters on HTML, TeX and LaTeX, SGML, TROFF (and other ROFF variants), PostScript, Acrobat, and formats used by word processors (such as RTF). Some of the discussions include useful manual-style information (about TROFF in particular), and all deal with how each one works, its strengths and weaknesses, and alternatives. The information is not designed to be definitive, but to provide a description in sufficient depth for an understanding of each format and its suitability for various applications. The Graphics part opens with a general discussion on colour and resolution, kinds of colours, kinds of images, and compression. It is useful background for those without any previous technical knowledge of digital images. A brief, but interesting, chapter deals with ASCII graphics (an almost lost art). Then follow chapters on GIF, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, VRML, and other formats (XBM, BMP, PICT, IFF, and PBM/PGM/PPM/PNM. T