TL;DR – Modern file formats are the unsung heroes of everything we view, hear, and share online. From royalty‑free AVIF images and AV1 video to PDF 2.0 documents and Zstandard compression, today’s standards balance tiny file sizes, high quality, open licensing, and long‑term accessibility. Pick the right format and you’ll save bandwidth, future‑proof your assets, and keep your workflow secure.
1. Why File Formats Still Matter Even though we click “download” without thinking, the format underneath decides whether a file opens on a Windows laptop, an Android phone, or a web browser.
Important File Formats in 2020: What Every Creator, Developer, and Data‑Scientist Should Know
Important File Formats in 2020: What Every Creator, Developer, and Data‑Scientist Should Know TL;DR – 2020 was the year file formats got leaner, smarter, and more open. Mobile‑first traffic, 5G, and cloud‑based collaboration pushed new compression standards (WebP, AVIF, AV1) and columnar data stores (Parquet, ORC). PDFs stayed king for static documents, while Markdown, JSON, and ONNX became the lingua‑franca for developers and AI pipelines.
Introduction If you were still using the same file types you learned in 2010, 2020 probably felt like a seismic shift.
Important File Formats in 2021
TL;DR – 2021 was the year file formats finally caught up with the web‑first, mobile‑first world: royalty‑free, HDR‑ready, and AI‑friendly standards displaced many legacy codecs. PDF 2.0 and DOCX/ODF dominate documents, AVIF/WebP and HEIF win on images, Opus takes over real‑time audio, AV1 starts to replace HEVC for video, and columnar formats like Parquet + Arrow become the backbone of big‑data pipelines.
1. Documents & Publishing – Two Pillars, One Ecosystem Format 2021 status Why you should care PDF 2.