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	Ben's Guide to U.S. Government

File Formats

ASCII Text | PDF | HTML | TIFF

GPO Access offers a variety of formats for viewing documents. The main format types are ASCII text and Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Text Image File Format (TIFF) files are also available for some documents.

Not all file formats are available for each database.

ASCII Text

ASCII text documents contain only the raw data and no formatting. As a result, they do not have any special graphics or font formats, such as bold, underline, or italics. When graphics and other elements are omitted or represented differently as text, a statement to that effect is included in double angle brackets (e.g., <<NOTE:>>) within the document.

Summary files contain the first 100 lines of a document in ASCII text. They allow you to preview a document before viewing or saving the full version, which is particularly helpful when you are dealing with a large file.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

Documents in the Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) preserve a printed document's original appearance. Their high aesthetic quality is achieved through the use of text, graphics, photos, and color. This format provides full-text search capabilities, allowing you to search and retrieve exactly what you need. It is independent of computer platform or distribution media and is available to all users who have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader Software. Users with SWAIS access will be unable to retrieve PDF files.

Saving a PDF file:

If the PDF file opens within your browser's window, you can save it by choosing "Save As" from the "File" menu. It will automatically save as a PDF file.

Otherwise, you have two options:

Right-click on the "PDF" link and choose "Save link as" or "Save target as" from the menu that appears.

Hold down the "shift" key and left-click on the "PDF" link.

If the file name appears as waisgate.cgi in the "Save As" dialogue box, you must rename the file with a .pdf extension. Example: filename.pdf.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

A Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) file is the document that a Web browser receives from a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is an ASCII text file with tags that signal how the browser should display the contents. HTML documents can be presented with formatting, graphics, and links.

Text Image File Format (TIFF)

A Text Image File Format (TIFF) is a graphics file. It is essentially a screen-shot of a document that contains both text and graphics; therefore, it is not searchable. To view a TIFF file, you must have a graphics viewer associated with your Web browser. TIFF files are found mainly in the older documents on GPO Access. A TIFF file differs from a PDF file in that it preserves the original appearance of a document but is not searchable.

Saving a TIFF file:

When saving a TIFF file, you can:

Right-click on the "TIFF" link and choose "Save link as" or "Save target as" from the menu that appears.

Hold down the "shift" key and left-click on the "TIFF" link.

If the file name appears as waisgate.cgi in the "Save As" dialogue box, you must rename the file with a .tif extension. Example: filename.tif.