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Multipart Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)

The following table lists many of the MIME content-types currently in use on the Web, and gives the data type associacted with the MIME type name. There are in some cases more than one MIME type in use for a given data type.
The types are divided into the following categories:
To make this table easier to use, some types appear
under more than one category



Description of Data Content
Typical Filename Extensions


MIME type/subtype
Text and Text-Related Types
HTML text data (RFC 1866)html htm text/html
Plain text: documents; program listings txt c c++ pl cc htext/plain
Richtext (obsolete - replaced by text/enriched) text/richtext
Structure enhanced text (etx?) text/x-setext
Enriched text markup (RFC 1896) text/enriched
Tab-separated values (tabular)(tsv?) text/tab-separated-values
SGML documents (RFC 1874) text/sgml
Speech synthesis data (MVP Solutions) talktext/x-speech
Document Stylesheet Types
Cascading Stylesheets css text/css
DSSSL-online stylesheets application/dsssl (proposed)
Image Types
GIF gif image/gif
X-Windows bitmap (b/w) xbm image/x-xbitmap
X-Windows pixelmap (8-bit color) xpm image/x-xpixmap
Portable Network Graphicspng image/x-png
Image Exchange Format (RFC 1314)ief image/ief
JPEG jpeg jpg jpe image/jpeg
TIFF tiff tif image/tiff
RGB rgb image/rgb
image/x-rgb
Group III Fax (RFC 1494)g3f image/g3fax
X Windowdump formatxwd image/x-xwindowdump
Macintosh PICT formatpict image/x-pict
PPM (UNIX PPM package)ppm image/x-portable-pixmap
PGM (UNIX PPM package)pgm image/x-portable-graymap
PBM (UNIX PPM package)pbm image/x-portable-bitmap
PNM (UNIX PPM package)pnm image/x-portable-anymap
Microsoft Windows bitmap bmp image/x-ms-bmp
CMU raster ras image/x-cmu-raster
Kodak Photo-CD pcd image/x-photo-cd
Computer Graphics Metafile cgm image/cgm
North Am. Presentation Layer Protocol image/naplps
CALS Type 1 or 2mil cal image/x-cals
Fractal Image Format (Iterated Systems) fifimage/fif
QuickSilver active image (Micrografx) dsfimage/x-mgx-dsf
CMX vector image (Corel)cmx image/x-cmx
Wavelet-compressed (Summus)wi image/wavelet
AutoCad Drawing (SoftSource)dwg image/vnd.dwg
image/x-dwg
AutoCad DXF file (SoftSource)dxf image/vnd.dxf
image/x-dxf
Simple Vector Format (SoftSource) svfimage/vnd.svf
also vector/x-svf
Audio/Voice/Music Related Types
"basic"audio - 8-bit u-law PCM au sndaudio/basic
Macintosh audio format (AIpple)aif aiff aifc audio/x-aiff
Microsoft audio wav audio/x-wav
MPEG audio mpa abs mpega audio/x-mpeg
MPEG-2 audiomp2a mpa2 audio/x-mpeg-2
compressed speech (Echo Speech Corp.) esaudio/echospeech
Toolvox speech audio (Voxware)vox audio/voxware
RapidTransit compressed audio (Fast Man) lccapplication/fastman
Realaudio (Progressive Networks) ra ramapplication/x-pn-realaudio
NIFF music notation data format application/vnd.music-niff
MIDI music data mmid x-music/x-midi
Koan music data (SSeyo)skp application/vnd.koan
application/x-koan
Speech synthesis data (MVP Solutions) talktext/x-speech
Video Types
MPEG videompeg mpg mpe video/mpeg
MPEG-2 videompv2 mp2v video/mpeg-2
Macintosh Quicktimeqt mov video/quicktime
Microsoft video avi video/x-msvideo
SGI Movie formatmovie video/x-sgi-movie
VDOlive streaming video (VDOnet) vdovideo/vdo
Vivo streaming video (Vivo software) vivvideo/vnd.vivo
video/vivo
Special HTTP/Web Application Types
Proxy autoconfiguration (Netscape browsers) pacapplication/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig
See Chapter 6 application/x-www-form-urlencoded
See Chapter 9 application/x-www-local-exec
See Chapter 9 (Netscape extension) multipart/x-mixed-replace
See Chapter 9 and Appendix B multipart/form-data
Netscape Cooltalk chat data (Netscape) icex-conference/x-cooltalk
Interactive chat (Ichat) application/x-chat
Application Types
Text-Related
PostScript ai eps ps application/postscript
Microsoft Rich Text Formatrtf application/rtf
Adobe Acrobat PDF pdf application/pdf
application/x-pdf
Maker Interchange Format (FrameMaker) mifapplication/vnd.mif
application/x-mif
Troff documentt tr roff application/x-troff
Troff document with MAN macrosman application/x-troff-man
Troff document with ME macrosme application/x-troff-me
Troff document with MS macrosms application/x-troff-ms
LaTeX document latex application/x-latex
Tex/LateX documenttex application/x-tex
GNU TexInfo documenttexinfo texi application/x-texinfo
TeX dvi format dvi application/x-dvi
MacWrite document?? application/macwriteii
MS word document?? application/msword
WordPerfect 5.1 document?? application/wordperfect5.1
SGML application (RFC 1874) application/sgml
Office Document Architectureoda application/oda
Envoy Documentevy application/envoy
Wang Info. Tranfer Format (Wang) application/wita
DEC Document Transfer Format (DEC) application/dec-dx
IBM Document Content Architecture (IBM) application/dca-rft
CommonGround Digital Paper (No Hands Software) application/commonground
FrameMaker Documents (Frame)doc fm frm frame application/vnd.framemaker
application/x-framemaker
Remote printing at arbitrary printers (RFC 1486) application/remote-printing
Archive/Compressed Archives
Gnu tar formatgtar application/x-gtar
4.3BSD tar formattar application/x-tar
POSIX tar formatustar application/x-ustar
Old CPIO formatbcpio application/x-bcpio
POSIX CPIO formatcpio application/x-cpio
UNIX sh shell archiveshar application/x-shar
DOS/PC - Pkzipped archivezip application/zip
Macintosh Binhexed archive hqx application/mac-binhex40
Macintosh Stuffit Archivesit sea application/x-stuffit
Fractal Image Format fif application/fractals
Binary, UUencodedbin uu application/octet-stream
PC executableexe application/octet-stream
WAIS "sources"src wsrc application/x-wais-source
NCSA HDF data formathdf application/hdf
Downloadable Program/Scripts
Javascript program js ls mocha text/javascript
application/x-javascript
VBScript program text/vbscript
UNIX bourne shell programsh application/x-sh
UNIX c-shell programcsh application/x-csh
Perl programpl application/x-perl
Tcl (Tool Control Language) programtcl application/x-tcl
Atomicmail program scripts (obsolete) application/atomicmail
Slate documents - executable enclosures (BBN) application/slate
Undefined binary data (often executable progs) application/octet-stream
RISC OS Executable programs (ANT Limited) application/riscos
Animation/Multimedia
Andrew Toolkit inset application/andrew-inset
FutureSplash vector animation (FutureWave) splapplication/futuresplash
mBED multimedia data (mBED)mbd application/mbedlet
Macromedia Shockwave (Macromedia) application/x-director
Sizzler real-time video/animation application/x-sprite
PowerMedia multimedia (RadMedia) radapplication/x-rad-powermedia
Presentation
PowerPoint presentation (Microsoft) ppzapplication/mspowerpoint
PointPlus presentation data (Net Scene) cssapplication/x-pointplus
ASAP WordPower (Software Publishing Corp.) aspapplication/x-asap
Astound Web Player multimedia data (GoldDisk) asnapplication/astound
Special Embedded Object
OLE script e.g. Visual Basic (Ncompass) axsapplication/x-olescript
OLE Object (Microsoft/NCompass) odsapplication/x-oleobject
OpenScape OLE/OCX objects (Business@Web) oppx-form/x-openscape
Visual Basic objects (Amara)wba application/x-webbasic
Specialized data entry forms (Alpha Software) frmapplication/x-alpha-form
client-server objects (Wayfarer Communications) wfxx-script/x-wfxclient
General Applications
Undefined binary data (often executable progs) application/octet-stream
CALS (U.S. D.O.D data format - RFC 1895) application/cals-1840
Pointcast news data (Pointcast) pcnapplication/x-pcn
Excel spreadsheet (Microsoft) application/vnd.ms-excel
application/x-msexcel
application/ms-excel
PowerPoint (Microsoft)ppt application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
application/ms-powerpoint
Microsoft Project (Microsoft) application/vnd.ms-project
Works data (Microsoft) application/vnd.ms-works
MAPI data (Microsoft) application/vnd.ms-tnef
Artgallery data (Microsoft) application/vnd.artgalry
SourceView document (Dataware Electronics) svdapplication/vnd.svd
Truedoc (Bitstream) application/vnd.truedoc
Net Install - software install (20/20 Software) insapplication/x-net-install
Carbon Copy - remote control/access (Microcom) ccvapplication/ccv
Spreadsheets (Visual Components) vtsworkbook/formulaone
Cybercash digital money (Cybercash) application/cybercash
Format for sending generic Macintosh files application/applefile
Active message -- connect to active mail app. application/activemessage
X.400 mail message body part (RFC 1494) application/x400-bp
USENET news message id (RFC 1036) application/news-message-id
USENET news message (RFC 1036) application/news-transmission
Multipart Types (mostly email)
Messages with multiple parts multipart/mixed
Messages with multiple, alternative parts multipart/alternative
Message with multiple, related parts multipart/related
Multiple parts are digests multipart/digest
For reporting of email status (admin.) multipart/report
Order of parts does not matter multipart/parallel
Macintosh file data multipart/appledouble
Aggregate messages; descriptor as header multipart/header-set
Container for voice-mail multipart/voice-message
HTML FORM data (see Ch. 9 and App. B) multipart/form-data
Infinite multiparts - See Chapter 9 (Netscape) multipart/x-mixed-replace
Message Types (mostly email)
MIME message message/rfc822
Partial message message/partial
Message containing external references message/external-body
Message containing USENET news message/news
HTTP message message/http
2D/3D Data/Virtual Reality Types
VRML data filewrl vrml x-world/x-vrml

(changing to model/vrml)

WIRL - VRML data (VREAM)vrw x-world/x-vream
Play3D 3d scene data (Play3D)p3d application/x-p3d
Viscape Interactive 3d world data (Superscape) svrx-world/x-svr
WebActive 3d data (Plastic Thought) wvrx-world/x-wvr
QuickDraw3D scene data (Apple) 3dmfx-world/x-3dmf
Scientific/Math/CAD Types
Chemical types -- to communicate information about chemical models chemical/* (several subtypes)
Mathematica notebookma application/mathematica
Computational meshes for numerical simulations mshx-model/x-mesh

(evolving to model/mesh)

Vis5D 5-dimensional data v5d application/vis5d
IGES models -- CAD/CAM (CGM) data igs application/iges

(evolving to model/iges?)

Autocad WHIP vector drawingsdwf drawing/x-dwf

Largely Platform-Specific Types

Silicon Graphics Specific Types
Showcase Presentationsshowcase slides sc sho show application/x-showcase
Insight Manual pagesins insight application/x-insight
Iris Annotator dataano application/x-annotator
Directory Viewerdir application/x-dirview
Software License lic application/x-enterlicense
Fax manager filefaxmgr application/x-fax-manager
Fax job data filefaxmgrjob application/x-fax-manager-job
IconBook dataicnbk application/x-iconbook
?wb application/x-inpview
Installable software in 'inst' formatinst application/x-install
Mail foldermail application/x-mailfolder
?pp ppages application/x-ppages
Data for printer (via lpr)sgi-lpr application/x-sgi-lpr
Software in 'tardist' formattardist application/x-tardist
Software in compressed 'tardist' format ztardistapplication/x-ztardist
WingZ spreadsheetwkz application/x-wingz
Open Inventor 3-D scenes iv graphics/x-inventor

Copyright © Ian S. Graham, 1997
Last Update: 25 January 1996
The HTML Sourcebook, 3Ed