Making TeX Work

Appendix A. Filename Extension Summary

This chapter summarizes many common filename extensions. The extensions are listed in alphabetical order. All extensions can be shortened to three letters for consistency with operating systems that do not allow longer file extensions. On other file systems, they may be slightly different. For example, EPS files are sometimes called EPSF files on unix systems, which allow longer filenames.

abf

An Adobe binary screen font file contains a binary encoding of a BDF (bitmap distribution format) file. Binary encoding makes the files smaller, but it also makes them less portable and unintelligible to humans. The binary format is described in Adobe's ABF Format Specification [abffiles]. BDF files are described below.

afm

Adobe font metrics files are ASCII files distributed with \ps Type 1 fonts. Type 1 fonts are the linearly scalable fonts that \ps printer users are most familiar with. Bounding boxes, an encoding vector (what characters go where), kerning, and ligature information are among the things described in this file. The AFM file format is described completely in Adobe's AFM Format Specification [afmfiles].

\ps fonts (available through commercial vendors or from the Internet) are supplied with AFM files. Generally, the only occasion that you would have to modify an AFM file would be to change the encoding vector.

aux

Auxiliary files are built by LaTeX each time it formats a document. LaTeX writes information about cross references, citations, ...