There are varieties of file extensions, and the new one with variation pop up each day. For an IT expert, the XML file extension does not seem like anything new. But for a new user of IT XML might be sound like an extension for malware. But it is not a malware; it is one of the widely used file extensions. XML actually means Extensible Markup Language. It means that it is kind of a markup language to interpret and add data to be understandable by humans as well as machines. So XML files are used to interpret, transport, structure and store data. It was designed with the aim of the generality of usage across all over the Internet. Dr. Charles Goldfarb who was involved in the development of XML file system, says that XML is a kind of holy grail for computing because it overcomes the problem of data exchange universally between non-identical systems.

Background

The true history of XML actually goes back to 1970’s when three employees of IBM, Charles Goldfarb, Ed Mosher and Ray Lorie introduced a new technique of forming technical documents, called GML, in which tags were used to structure the data. The name actually consisted of initials of their names Goldfarb, Mosher, and Lorie. Later Goldfarb introduced the term general markup language to reflect the use of the GML better. In 1986 ISO adopted it as SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). SGML is not an actual markup language rather it provides a specification for other languages, for example, HTML is used to specify tags for web pages, is an application of SGML.

Although HTML was so much popular from the start but there were many problems which were creating headaches for the web developers especially. There were some loopholes in the presentation which were left open on the discrete of end users, on the contrary, page designers always wanted to solidify their design. The completion between Internet Explorer and Netscape was causing differentiation in the standards and was creating more problems for web developers. These problems and lack of standard were causing the original idea about web pages and usage of web services to drift away because the interpretation of web content was no longer uniform.

Because of these problems, it was widely accepted that HTML is too limited and SGML is too complicated, so there was demand for something much better. In 1990’s a large group of people well known in the industry collaborated and came up with the XML. The collaboration was done using emails and teleconferences. The XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. Basically, it is also the specification for other markup languages. It was developed with the aim of general purpose usability and stability, conciseness, formality and minimum optional features. Its internet application is only one form of its usage. With the introduction of XML now it is easy to specify and store any data, which can be imported and processed by any application using any platform.

Uses

There are wide varieties of uses of XML. Some of these uses are as follows.

General application of XML is that it provides a standardized platform to store, access and display data.

While doing web searches and web tasks, XML makes it easier to get desired results because XML defines the kind of data store in the file.

The most popular use of XML is in web development. With XML it is easier to develop an interactive and wide variety with the option to the customer to customize. While data is stored once in XML, which can be used to present to different users with the different style of viewing and processing.

XML use is also getting popular in the storage of data among enterprises. With the use of XML, it is easy to exchange data across different platforms. A business process is getting connected across global scale more than ever. If data hubs are using standardized XML, it will allow business to interact with each other and with customers with ease. Many industries have created systems for storing information in the standardized form using XML for better interaction within the industry. Finance, health care, sciences, and music industry are just to name a few who are using XML for standard data storage. For example in publishing industry XML is used across all document publishers, for example, XML is the basis for Microsoft’s as well as Google’s application as well.

Layout

There are two methods to layout data of any XML document. These layouts are DTD (Data Type Definition) and XML schema. DTD is basically an extension of SGML and XML schema is written using XML syntax. There are some limitations in DTD such as it treats all data in a document as a string and does not have the ability to specify specific rules to specific data. For some application, it is not useful that is why XML schema language was introduced.

You can use our online XML Converter to convert XML files into other formats or you can also convert your PDF files into XML using our PDF to XML Converter.

Before PDF, it was a lot difficult to interpret data from various formats on a different device. All of the operating systems were based on different formats. To eliminate this problem, John Warnock and his team come together on a project named ‘Camelot’. The goal of this project was to create a uniform format which can be accessed on any operating system. The very idea of a singular format that worked on any system was formed for the advancement of business technology. This kind of format indicated that the offices would go digital and the document would be stored in such format instead of paper.

The first PDF; IPS

The first format was mentioned at Seybold conference in San Jose in 1991. At this time it was named IPS i.e. Interchange PostScript. It was officially announced at Comdex Fall in 1992 and received a best of Comdex award. The tools by Adobe, which were used to create or view PDF files and Acrobat, were launched in 1993. It was, at first, of no use for the publishing market since it already featured bookmarks or internal link with RGB as the only supported color space. The name of the original project was replaced by Carousel, the future Acrobat software. This name remained and was taken as a file format type in Macintosh.

PDF 1.1

Acrobat 2 was introduced to the market in November 1994. It supported the format which added support for external links, article threads, security features, independent color space, and notes. Acrobat 2 was also improved, including a new architecture of Acrobat Exchange to support plug-ins in and PDF file searching feature. After its launch, this new and improved PDF file format was promoted ad popularized by the Adobe itself as well as the US government which distributed their forms and papers digitally in PDF files. Adobe started shipping its product in the year 1995. At the same time, they also introduced PDF file support in many of their products like Framemaker 5.0.

PDF 1.2; time of the Press Market

Acrobat 3 along with PDF 1.2 was launched in 1996. This included many features for the press community and greatly enhanced the Adobe software. It included features such as OPI 1.3 and CMYK color space support as well as spot color maintenance. At this time, the internet was also improving and popular. Adobe saw this as an opportunity to take the market and released a plug-in to view PDF files in Netscape browser. On the other side, Acrobat 3 was improved with a lot of extensions for the prepress community throughout 1997 and 1998 like plug-ins for Pitstop and Checkup from Enfocus software and Crackerjacks from Lanatanarips.

PDF/X-1 and PDF 1.3

Based on PDF 1.2, a reliable and standard format was launched by the prepress community in 1998, known as PDF/X-1. It included extra and improved features such as the ability to blind transfers and fonts as well as embedding high-resolution image.

In 1999, Adobe introduced PDF 1.3 along with Acrobat 4. They were designed according to the modern prepress technology and requirement so as to cope up with the market. It included OPI 2.0 specifications, new color space known as DeviceN as well as annotations. Page size support was improved along with integration with Microsoft Office. This made it easier to work with adobe acrobat and the software was seen as user-friendly rather than confusing.

PDF 1.4; an illustrative partner

In mid-2000, it was the first time that Adobe release PDF version 1.4 with Illustrator 9 and not Acrobat. Illustrator 9 came with the unique feature of supporting PDF 1.4 and transparency, although full specs were not revealed about PDF 1.4 at the time.

PDF 1.4 was properly released with Acrobat 5 in 2001 and its full specifications were shown. Along with transparency support, improved file security and printing quality were also seen in the new version. JavaScript support was also added in the version. A new step towards the advancement of digital papers was taken by the company. ‘Tagged PDF’ was introduced in this version which means detailed information defining the actual document can be a part of the PDF.

PDF of the future

The year 2003, PDF 1.5 is launched which comes with improved features like image compression, layer support and enhanced tagged PDF.

Two years late, in 2005, Adobe gives PDF 1.6 which had some improved as well as new features like PDF container file, file embedding support, new 3D embed support, as well as some enhancements to old features.

PDF 1.7 was much of an improvement over the previous version with few new features. One improvement of PDF 1.7 was becoming ISO-standard, which happened in 2008.

Since PDF had now become part of ISO, Adobe could not release a new version of PDF Thus, it stuck with Acrobat and its extension. This extension acted as an improvement to PDF 1.7.However, ISO is planning to release PDF 2.0 with minor adjustments to PDF 1.7 and some new features of its own.

At FreeFileConvert, we support conversion of PDF files into various formats, so you can always use our online converter if there’s a need to change the format of your PDF files.

If you work with your computer and you are used to manage big, big, chunks of data, the most difficult choice to make when thinking about how to share them or to send them, is picking the right data compression format. It sounds maybe too much if you are listening with inexperienced ears, but which compression format you use can have a powerful impact on the performance of your work.

So it is time to compress some files, what format should you use? There are many criteria you could take into account and compression ratio is one of them, but not the only one as many tend to believe. The ease with which you can use a specific format rather than another one is very important too. Downloading and learning to use third-party software can be exhausting and tiring and overall irritating, so in this guide we will try to analyze the most common data compression formats: ZIP, RAR and 7Z format. Hopefully, after reading this, you will know which one to pick considered that each one of us has different needs in terms of compressing data.

ZIP
The Zip archiving format is most likely the most common and mainstream one that you can find on a Microsoft Windows system. It has many good functions and in recent years its developers have introduced several interesting improvements to the format, such as big recovery records that are able to rebuild accidentally missing data, a strong and safe encryption and a better compression ratio. However, these features are not what kept Zip this popular. Two other factor did that.

• Zip compression is undoubtedly quite fast and if you a massive amount of data to compress, you will probably end up choosing Zip over other options because it is faster and the fact does not provide the best amount of compression will probably not affect you at all.
• Also, Zip support is almost epidemic. No matter the operating system of your computer, whether it is Linux or Windows systems, Zip is the ideal choice when you have to send via email big data. You never know what the other person has as operating system, but Zip will solve this issue.

RAR
RAR is another archive format that is quite common out there. It was introduced by WinRar for the Windows platforms and it can be used on Linux too, even if only as an extractor. It is probably the strongest alternative to the Zip format being that has a very good encryption as well, an even better compression ratio and error recovery capabilities. Because of these reasons, RAR is very popular among those who need a way to distribute files all over the web.

7z
And lastly, but not least, there is 7z. It is modern and open source, sporting the highest compression ratio out there and when put work against its fellow archive formats Zip and Rar, it proves to be better in many cases. Because it has such a nice compression ratio, it is not the best option if you need a quick job, unless the computer you are using has an ultramodern multi-core CPU.

In a nutshell
If you are not an expert of this field, this entire article might have sound slightly difficult. However, going through our arguments, one thing is clear: it depends on what needs you have, what do you hope to achieve with the compression of your file and how much time you have that can be dedicated to waiting for your big files to be compressed. Hopefully this guide helped you go navigate better in this jungle of formats.

Our Archive Converter understands a lot of compression formats, so if you can’t open an archive/compressed file on your computer because of not having the appropriate software then you can always use it to convert your files to a most popular zip format.

MP3 file format

There exist numerous types of aural files. Thus, if you desire to alter the sound formats or replicate the files so that they become playable in different audio players, you ought to be knowledgeable with various file types. These file types can be differentiated through examination of the file name extension. With that in mind, there are compacted audio file types which are preferred by many when downloading, copying, and storing. MP3(.mp3) and OGG(.ogg) are two of the frequently used compressed audio file types. These types are known as lossy compression audio formats. MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or in short MP3 is a revolutionary digitized aural file format which permits the audio file to be compressed to small sizes while still retaining the same quality of sound in the predominantly bigger PCM WAV formats. You can compress a 50MB WAV file to nearly 3 to 5 MB of the MP3 file without interfering with its quality of sound. Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Thompson Multimedia developed the MP3 format in the late 80s. MP3 was expressly designed for easy download and storage over the Web, and that success made it trendy. You can load a hundred or more MP3 songs on an ordinary CD. The fame of this format also ushered in the MP3 players, and those who trade in these devices realize considerable profits. The MP3 format was well-liked and practical that it brought a lot of uproar in the music production industry since patented music became more readily accessible and shared digitally.

OGG file format

Another type of the compacted digital audio file format is OGG Vorbis or the OGG. OGG is not that commonly known as the MP3; however, it is smaller in file size because it is even more compressed. Unlike the copyrighted MP3, OGG is not restricted by any exclusive rights, because it is open source and hence free for everyone. The compression of OGG digital audio differs in bit rate. The significant disadvantage of OGG is that there are very few transportable players that utilize this format implying that you cannot travel around with your favourite songs. Most of us do not even have this codec on our PC’s. While it is so simple to set up, most people get perplexed with what to do with the OGG files. The unique aspect of this file extension is its usage devoid of the requirement to adhere to any software copyright laws. OGG file became popular because it was identified that an important tool was needed to create high-quality digital multimedia music. OGG was the best tool for that. Its application with pocket PC also tremendously contributed to this extension’s fame. OGG is also working to develop a copyright-open source video format akin to that of MPEG.

What are the major disparities between OGG and MP3?

• MP3 supports “Joint Stereo” and also two separate channels while OGG supports more than two channels up to 256 maximum.
• MP3 media encoding format is based on proprietorship. Its developers assert that they ask for payments for any application or file that uses the MP3 format.OGG is not only an open encoding format but it also available free of charge.
• OGG Vorbis encoding at 192 kbps is superior to MP3; however, both have same quality at 128 kbps.
• Between the two formats, MP3 is more common than OGG Vorbis.
• Regarding sound quality, OGG Vorbis is better than MP3.
• MP3 is restricted by copyrights while OGG Vorbis is free for all.
• In MP3 the bit rate of compression remains unchanged and cannot be varied while in OGG Vorbis the compression bit rate can be varied according to your requirements.
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Thompson Multimedia developed the MP3 while the Viph.Org Foundation created OGG Vorbis.

 So between MP3 vs. OGG Which Should You go for?

Now that you know the difference between the two formats which one is best for you?Owing to its early introduction into the world of file sharing, MP3 became tremendously fashionable. Its recognition is based on the reality that the phrase MP3 was synonymic with Compressed audio. The word MP3 is often used by some people to mean any aural file. On the other hand, the OGG Vorbis file format is increasingly becoming trendy among developers due to its better-quality sound and free for all code base. Nowadays, the hardware and toy makers are employing OGG Vorbis in the encoding of their audio files to evade MP3 patent problems and attain well-organized compression. Though, most of the portable music players or MP3 players do not support the format of OGG Vorbis. The game development industry highly favours the OGG Vorbis format as it has been significantly used in some recent popular games development.

Our MP3 Converter supports conversion of MP3 files into a lot of different formats. Similarly, our OGG Converter supports conversion of OGG files into various popular audio formats, so if you have an audio file that you simply can’t play because you don’t have the relevant software installed on your Operating System (OS) then you can simply change it’s format to the one supported by your OS and continue to listen to your favourite music.