Editing Document file format (section)

{{Distinguish|Film format}}
{{refimprove|date=February 2023}}
{{short description|Type of text or binary file format}}
A '''document file format''' is a [[Text file|text]] or [[binary file]] format for storing [[document]]s on a [[computer storage|storage media]], especially for use by [[computer]]s.
There currently exists a multitude of incompatible document file formats.

Examples of [[XML]]-based [[open format|open]] standards are [[DocBook]], [[XHTML]], and, more recently, the [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]]/[[International Electrotechnical Commission|IEC]] standards [[OpenDocument]] (ISO 26300:2006) and [[Office Open XML]] (ISO 29500:2008).

In 1993, the [[ITU-T]] tried to establish a standard for document file formats, known as the [[Open Document Architecture]] (ODA) which was supposed to replace all competing document file formats. It is described in ITU-T documents T.411 through T.421, which are equivalent to ISO 8613. It did not succeed.

[[Page description language]]s such as [[PostScript]] and [[Portable Document Format|PDF]] have become the ''[[de facto]]'' standard for documents that a typical user should only be able to create and read, not edit. In 2001, a series of [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]]/[[International Electrotechnical Commission|IEC]] standards for PDF began to be published, including the specification for PDF itself, [[ISO 32000|ISO-32000]].

[[HTML]] is the most used and open international standard and it is also used as document file format. It has also become [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]]/[[International Electrotechnical Commission|IEC]] standard (ISO 15445:2000).

The default binary file format used by [[Microsoft Word]] ([[DOC (computing)|.doc]]) has become a widespread ''[[de facto]]'' standard for office documents, but it is a [[proprietary format]] and is not always fully supported by other word processors.