Tech Yoda's Tip of the Week: Know Your Extensions

DOCs and PDFs and JPGs, oh my!  Do you know what all of these three-four letter combos are, which follow the file name of every file on your computer?  Let's take a little pop quiz, shall we?

1. What does .EXE stand for?
1. Excel
2. Excellent
3. Execute
4. Exertion
2. What program would you use to open a .MPG file?
1. Sound Recorder
2. Media Player
3. iTunes
4. PowerPoint
3. What program would you use to open a .CSV file?
1. Excel
2. MapViewer
3. Outlook
4. Publisher
4. How many different file extensions exist?
1. Hundreds
2. Thousands
3. Tens of Thousands
4. Hundreds of Thousands
   (bonus point if you can guess the most common letter of the alphabet for file extensions to start with)
5. What is the difference between a .PPT and a .PPTX?
1. One is a regular PowerPoint file and the other is a PowerPoint template
2. One is a PowerPoint file with animations and the other is not
3. One is web-ready and the other is not
4. One is compatible with PowerPoint 2000-2003 and the other is compatible with PowerPoint 2007

How'd you do?  I'll post the answers next week.  In the meantime, let's learn a little more about file extensions.

File extensions serve a very important purpose, in that they tell your computer what program to use to open the file, as well as what format the data is in.  Changing a file extension is a big no-no!  It will make your data unreadable.  However, the one exception is when you have a file with no file extension, that is unreadable as is, you can add a file extension to the name if you think you know what kind of data it is, and perhaps salvage the file.  But please do this with extreme caution!  Pay attention to the format you save your documents in so that other people have the ability to read the file you've created.  .EPS is a file type for graphic art that I use often, but if someone needs a file that they can work with, I will convert it to .JPG or .PNG before sharing it.  If you come across a file extension you don't recognize, google it--you'll have an easy answer.