This page may be referred to as www.birmingham.gov.uk/attach We sometimes attach documents, or other files, to pages on Birmingham.gov.uk, for you to download. We do this for a number of reasons: so that you can have printed copies; to preserve layout of forms and official documents, so that you can manipulate them on your computer, and so on. We use a number of different file formats. Depending on the computer and software you are using, these may open in your browser, simply by you following the relevant link. Otherwise you may need to have special software to access them. Caption File Type Icon Acronym File extension (the last part of the file name) Description Software Text - .txt Plain text. Any text editor (such as Notepad, which is part of Microsoft Windows) Rich Text Format RTF .rtf A simple word processor format for text documents, with some presentational control. Can be opened by many word processors (including all versions of Microsoft Word, and Star Office). Microsoft Word - .doc Microsoft's proprietary word processor format. Microsoft provides a free reader for Word documents. Microsoft Powerpoint - .ppt Microsoft's proprietary format for audio- visual presentations. Microsoft provides a free reader for Powerpoint documents. Comma Separated Variable CSV .csv A plain text file, with columns of tabular data. Can be opened in a text editor, or most Spreadsheet applications. Microsoft Excel - .xls Microsoft's proprietary spreadsheet processor format Microsoft provides a free reader for Excel documents. Microsoft Access - .db Microsoft's proprietary database format. Microsoft Access. Portable Document Format PDF .pdf A format for documents, primarily intended for printing. Adobe's PDF reader is free. Zipped ZIP .zip "Zipping" is a method of compressing any kind of file. Many free and commercial applications can Zip and Unzip files. If you require additional help or suggestions for software for alternative operating systems please e-mail us at webteam@birmingham.gov.uk