Helper Applications and Plug-Ins

The Problem: Helper applications or plug-ins are programs that your Web Browser uses to play/display file formats it can not handle. Because there are many kinds of media in existence and many kinds of formats each kind of media can be stored in, it is not possible for your Web Browser to be able to handle all of them. Sometimes, you may come accross a new format just created or a format that is not that popular or simply one not yet handled by your browser. What do you do?

The Solution: You must find a program that can play/display the media format in question and install it on your machine and configure your Web Browser to automatically call this helper program any time it comes across this media format on the Web.

How do you do it? Well, you must first know whay kind/format of media you are trying to view. This is usually characterized by the file extension used: Examples: paper.doc ----> This is a Microsoft Word Document (.doc) paper.gif ----> This is an Image of format type GIF (.gif) paper.ppt ----> This is a Power Point Presentation (.ppt) Secondly, you must find a helper application/ Web browser plug-in that will play/display the media. You can find this by searching on the web for the application. For example, if you were looking for a Helper Application that will let you view .WRL/.wrl files which are Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) files, you could search at your favorite search engine with the following strings: Example Search Strings: VRML player Virtual Reality player WRL player Lastly, you will need to follow the instructions to download your helper application. Commonly, the installation process will automatically update your browser's Preferences section that lets it know from know on whenever it sees the media format in question to call this helper application.

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Browse below to learn about the many available Helper Apps and Plug-Ins. Find where they may be downloaded to your system.

Remember the best way to find sites and resources is with a search engine, such as...

lycos
yahoo

The section below is a table adapted, but has omissions of changing technology

Common Internet File Formats

Updated from a table compiled by Eric Perlman and Ian Kallen

Last update: 1998

Find the file type you are looking for quickly in the INDEX, following the table

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Note: This list is mainly intended for use on PC's running MS-Windows and for Macintosh computers. This is only a partial list of what really is out there but for these common platforms, the majority of the file types encountered on-line can be handled with the referenced tools. For compression info for all platforms check the comp.compression FAQ (126Kb).

Various File Formats

File Suffix	Format Description & Type	How to deal with it
.arj	PC format common to European sites. Binary	Use unArjMac or DeArj, however the resulting file will probably not be usable on a mac.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
.au	.au is the most common sound format found on the web. Binary	Use Sound Player to play it
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
.aiff	.aiff is also a semi-common sound format. Binary	Use Sound Player to play it
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
.bin	Macbinary II Encoded File, or DOS/Win binary. Make sure to download as MacBinary or Binary.	Use Stuffit Expander to turn back into a usable Macintosh file if it isn't already.
		Used with compiler/interpreter
		Used with compiler/interpreter
.doc	May be a DOS/Windows program or a DOS/Windows Self Extracting Archive Binary	Use MS-Word
		Use WordView to quickly display MS-Word documents
		Use WordView to quickly display MS-Word documents
.dwg .dxf	Drawing files (2D and 3D) igmages from AutoDesk. Binary	Unknown
		Search for Plug-In
		Search for Plug-In
.exe	May be a DOS/Windows program or a DOS/Windows Self Extracting Archive Binary	N/A
		Download and launch it in its own temporary directory, it may spawn a number of files and directories. Self Extracting
		Download and launch it in its own temporary directory, it may spawn a number of files and directories. Self Extracting
.gif	GIF (Graphical Interchange Format), though not always the most economical, is the most common graphics format found on the Internet. Good for up to 256 colors, and supports interlacing and transparent images.	Use GIFConverter or JPEG View
		Use Lview Pro to view these graphics
		Use PolyView to view these graphics
.gz	.gz is the Gnu version of zip. It is a compression method developed for use on UNIX systems. Binary	Use macgzip to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
.html (.shtml) .htm (.shtm)	HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), the code the web is written in. Plain text file.(.shtml is the parsed file with Server Side Includes)	Use Netscape for MacIntosh to view the file
		Use Netscape for Windows 3.1x to view the file
		Use Netscape for Windows95 and Windows NT to view the file
.hqx	BinHex 4.0 - Encodes a Macintosh file into 7-bit text so it can be safely transfered. Most Mac files appear in .hqx	Use Stuffit Expander
		Use BinHex13 in a DOS window to un-binhex it
		Use BinHex13 in a DOS window to un-binhex it
.image	Macintosh Disk Image, most commonly found on Apple's FTP sites. Binary	Use Shrink Wrap to mount the disk image, and deal with it like you would a floppy
		N/A
		N/A
.jpg .jpeg .jfif	JPEG/JFIF, a 24 bit graphic format, generally best for photo-type images on the 'net. Binary	Use JPEG View
		Use Lview Pro to view these graphics
		Use PolyView to view these graphics
.mpg .mpeg	MPEG, the standard movie platform for the 'net. Binary	Use sparkle to play them, or to convert them to QuickTime.
		Use VMPEG with win32s to play MPEGs
		Use VMPEG or Ladybug to play MPEGs
.mov .qt .movie .moov	QuickTime Movie, Apple Macintosh native movie platform. For QT movie to play on platform other than Mac, need to "flatten" the file. Binary	Use Sparkle, FastPlayer, MoviePlayer, SimpleText, MicrosoftWord...and many others. If the movie appears totaly white, you may need to use the Apple Quicktime VR Player to see them.
		Use QuickTime for Windows, may need to flatten with program such as Qflat.
		Use QuickTime for Windows, may need to flatten with program such as Qflat.
.pdf	Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format, download as Binary	Use Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat
		Use Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat
		Use Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat
.ps	Postscript file. Plain text file, but not really human-readable.	Send to a Postscipt printer with Laserwriter Font Utility or view it onscreen using Ghostscript
		View it onscreen using Ghostscript
		View it onscreen using Ghostscript
.sit	Stuffit Archive - Binary	Download as MacBinary, and use Stuffit Expander
		Use UnSit in a DOS window
		Use UnSit in a DOS window
.sea	Macintosh Self Extracting Archive	Download as MacBinary, and launch it. Self Extracting
		N/A
		N/A
.tar	UNIX tar program takes seperate files and turns them into one file. Often also compressed. Extensions such .tar.Z, .tar.gz and .tgz (latter two are equivalent) requires decompression first, then un-tar. Some UNIX ftp servers will un-tar a file if you request it without the ".tar" extention. Binary	Download and use Tar
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
.tiff .tif	TIFF is a very large high quality image format. One of the most common for transfer of images across platforms, but be warned there are several flavors of TIFF> Binary	Use JPEGView
		Use Lview Pro to view these graphics
		Use PolyView to view these graphics
.txt	A plain boring old Text File (but works on any platform).	Use Microsoft Word, Simple Text, BBEdit, whatever
		Use the 16 bit version of Programmer's File Editor or Word or WordPad or whatever
		Use the 32 bit version of Programmer's File Editor or Word or WordPad or whatever
.uu .uue	A uuencoded file. Typically this is done on a UNIX command line: uuencode OriginalFileName SecondFilename > EncodedFile.uu Then, after running: uudecode EncodedFile.uu One gets a file generated named: SecondFileName Using .uu as the extension is not required but is considered politely explanatory for what type of file it is. Increasing numbers of desktop mail and newsreading programs will handle this type of encoding on the fly.	Use UU Undo to uudecode it
		Use WinCode to uudecode it
		Use ESS-Code to uudecode it
.wav	Windows Wave format sound file. Largest availability of stock sound files. Binary	You can use SoundApp to play .wav files
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
		Use Waveform Hold and Modify to play it
.Z	Unix Compressed File Binary	If you are downloading via ftp most ftp servers will uncompress for you if you drop the ".Z". Otherwise use Stuffit Expander w/EE.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
.zip	pkzip, a common DOS/Windows compression format Binary	Use ZipIt, Stuffit Expander w/ EE, or MacUnZip
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.
		Use WinZIP to view and extract archives.

Where to get the Software packages

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Freeware program from Adobe to read Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format files.
Source site: http://www.adobe.com/Software/Acrobat/

BinHex13

Use this in a DOS window to get the original file.

ESS-Code

A Windows 32 bit program. Allows drag and drop uuencoding/decoding and MIME support. Look for tile name like ecdXXw95.zip where XX is a version number
ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win95/txtutil/

Ghostscript

Freeware program for viewing Postscript files on screen, saving to PICT format, etc. The program requires that you install a large (~6 MB) collection of files though. It also crashes alot.
Macintosh source site: http://www.glyphic.com/free/macgs.html
To run Aladdin Ghostscript on a PC you need gs###ini.zip, gs###fn1.zip and one of gs###dos.zip, gs###os2.zip, gs###win.zip or gs###w32.zip. Be sure to read the README and Index files in this directory.
ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/aladdin/

GIFConverter

Shareware program (~$30) for viewing and converting between GIF, PICT, TIFF, RLE, JPEG (JFIF), EPSF, RIFF, Macpaint, StartupScreen and "Scan Image" formats. Some primitive file editing can be done such as cropping and re-sizing (scale-by-percent) and adjusting file resolution and dither pattern. GIFConverter will save GIFs in Interlaced format if you choose, but cannot handle transparent colors.
The main site: http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter.html

JPEGView

JPEGView is a freeware graphic program to read GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and PICT files. Runs fast and will dither nicely to any size of screen/color palette.
Source Site: http://mac.simplenet.com/graphics/jpegview

Ladybug

The Ladybug 1.00 for Windows95/NT can only play MPEG files less than 800KB but it looks promising, watch for updates.

Laserwriter Font Utility

This comes with your Macintosh. It's on the Printing Tools disk, or it may already be installed in your Utilities folder. If you need to download it from Apple, you can.
Source site: http://www.support.apple.com/

Lview Pro

Lviewpro provides support for a variety of graphics formats including GIF '89 (transparent backgrounds), conversion between different formats and image editing functions.
Pick it up at http://www.cmis.csiro.au/ITSG/lview.htm

Netscape

Netscape is by far one of the fastest and most powerfull World Wide Web browser.
http://netscape.com

PolyView

PolyView is a Windows NT/95 program that displays GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and photo-cd graphics files and converts between these file formats.
http://www.polybytes.com/pvbetha.htm

Programmer's File Editor

Programmer's File Editor is a large-capacity multi-file programming oriented editor for Windows 3.1x, Windows NT on Intel and PowerPC platforms, and Windows 95. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/cpaap/pfe

QuickTime

QuickTime is Apple's video format. Players for Macintosh and Windows are available.
http://quicktime.apple.com/

Quicktime VR Player

This is a QuickTime moview player that will aslo play QuickTine VR movies
Source Site: http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com/InMac.htm
More Information: http://qtvr.quicktime.apple.com/

Shrinkwrap

Shrinkwrap is a free Mac utility that allows you to mount and use disk image files as if they were a mounted floppy disk. You can also copy disk images to floppies with Shrinkwrap by simply dragging the floppy icon onto Shrinkwrap.
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-compression.html#shrinkwrap-142

Sound Player

Sound Player is a multipurpose sound program that can record and play back .au and aiff format sounds.
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-sound.html

SoundApp

SoundApp is a small featureless program that will play most audio files you may find
http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/mac/pub-mac-sound.html

Sparkle

Sparkle is the best MPEG player for the mac. You can play and convert between Quicktime and MPEG.
Sumex: ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Mac/Mosaic/Helpers/sparkle-245.hqx

Stuffit Expander with Expander Enchancer

Stuffit Expander is the decompression program for the mac. With Expander Enchancer (It is installed when you install DropStuff) you can expand a LOT of formats!
get both Stuff Expander and Drop Stuff w/ EE from Aladdin

Tar

Tar 4.0 will read and write tar files.
gopher://gopher.archive.umich.edu:7055/40/mac/util/compression/tar4.0b.sit.hqx

UNSIT

UNSIT is a simple utility for PC users to extract files from a StuffIt file.
http://www.opus.co.tt/library/atari1.htm

UU Undo

UU Undo is a simple program to decode uu encoded files on the mac.
http://helpdesk.uvic.ca/how-to/support/mac/uuundo.html

VMPEG

VMPEG can play MPEG system layer streams containing both video and audio. This is a win32s program.
http://mirror.queen.it/cws/32video.html#vmpeg

Waveform Hold and Modify (WHAM)

WHAM provides support for a variety of formats, conversion between them and file editing functions.
Pick it up from http://www.inc.net/disks/pc/wham131.exe

WinCode

Wincode is a Windows 3.x program which converts 8-bit BINARY (EXE, COM,GIF, etc) files to 7-bit ASCII (Text) files (and vice versa) through a process known as bit-shifting. Wincode currently supports UU/XX and Base64 (MIME 1.0 conformant) coding.
To be had from http://www.surnames.com/organizations/agcig/shareware/wincode.htm

WinZip

WinZip is an essential tool for it's excellent handling of many different archiving and compression formats. Downloads as a self-extracting archive.
Get it off the Network and Computing Page at http://www.monterey.edu

WordView

For MS-Windows users, displaying Microsoft Word documents without having to allocate the memory resources required to fire up MS-Word is very handy. Get yours at ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/

ZipIt

A fast program for the Macintosh to extract and create Zip archives.
Home Site: http://www.awa.com/softlock/zipit/zipit.html

INDEX

A	.arj .au .aiff Acrobat
B	.bin BinHex13
C
D	.doc
E	.exe ESS-Code
F
G	.gz GhostScript
H	.htm .html .hqx
I	.image
J	.jpg .jpeg .jfif JPEGView
K
L	Laser Font Utility Ladybug Lview Pro
M	.mpg .mpeg .mov .movie
N	Netscape
O
P	.pdf .ps PolyView Programmer's File Editor
Q	.qt QuickTime QuickTime VR
R
S	.sea .sit Shrinkwrap Sound Player SoundApp Sparkle Stuffit Expander
T	.tar .tgz .tif .tiff .txt TAR
U	.uu UNSIT UU Undo
V	VMPEG
W	.wav WHAM WinCode WinZip WordView
X
Y
Z	.Z .zip ZipIt

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Important file types not included within the above list include Schockware (for Director, Authorware, etc. from Macromedia), dxf/dwg viewers for 3D objects (Autodesk, 3DS files from Kinnetix, and general layout viewers Envoy and Common Ground software.