PRONOM The Web-Based File Format Registry

What program goes with that file format anyway? If you've computers for any length of time you know that there are literally hundreds of file formats out there, and they're tough to keep up with. PRONOM, at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/ , provides information on 550 file formats, 250 software products, and 100 vendors.

You can search by file format to either a) find products which use a particular extension, or find programs which can handle a particular format. I searched for RTF and got eight different formats (all evolutions, it looks like, of the Rich Text Format.) You can also search by product name, vendor, support period, and release date. I searched product name for Excel. I got a list of Microsoft Excel versions back to 2.1. When I clicked on a version I got a lot of information including release date, "tech dependency" (system requirements), support provider and how long product will be supported, and an image of the item's box.

I then got huge lists of what data formats the product reads, and what formats it writes. You have the option to save the report as a comma-delimited file. If I were doing a lot of work with a lot of data formats, I'd find this registry extremely handy.

Posted to Computing-Software | TrackBack