| Extension | DDS |
| Full Name | DirectDraw Surface |
| Type | Image |
| Mime Type | image/vnd-ms.dds |
| Format | Binary |
| Opens With | Paint.Net |
The DDS file format accompanied the launch of Microsoft's Direct X suite of game development tools in the early 2000s. DDS files are used by Direct X as an image storage format and, as such, support a wide range of colour depths and can also record alpha channel data.
DDS files were often used by game developers to store texture images used in complex 3D virtual worlds. Games would often employ multiple versions of the same DDS texture image at different resolutions using a 3D effect known as mip-mapping, whereby different textures are selected to be rendered depending on the proximity of the 3D object to the view port.
Varying levels of compression, both lossy and non-lossy, can be used to reduce the size of DDS files. Certain image editing applications can open DDS files, though they have largely been replaced with other popular formats such as PNG and JPEG.
| Extension | PDF |
| Full Name | Portable Document Format |
| Type | Document |
| Mime Type | application/pdf |
| Format | Binary |
PDF documents have been around for many years, becoming the standard format for storing and transmitting documents with rich content such as formatted text, images, tables, and other complex formatting. The format is still under development, with new features being added with each revision.
One of the reasons for its widespread adoption is its ability to store all the required document components, especially fonts, within a single file, allowing the document to be rendered equally on different platforms and devices.
PDF documents are read-only, unless opened within Adobe's own editing software. Support for importing and converting to and from the PDF format is widely supported by document editing software.
