Internet Media Types
Media Types are used by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extentions (MIME) and other Internet standards to identify the type and encoding of data being transmitted. RFC2049 describes the MIME standard.
Registered Content Types and Subtypes
The following Internet standard media types have been registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). "vnd" prefixes indicate standards owned or otherwised controlled by a vendor.
Type Subtype Description Reference ---- ------- ----------- --------- text plain raw text RFC1521 richtext simple SGML-based attributes RFC1521 enriched enhancement of richtext RFC1563 tab-separated-values plain text w/ tabs html Hyper-Text Markup Language RFC1866 sgml Standard Generalized Markup Language RFC1874, SGML vnd.latex-z vnd.fmi.flexstor multipart mixed multiple content types RFC1521 alternative alternative types for same content RFC1521 digest digest of message types RFC1521 parallel simultaneously viewes RFC1521 appledouble Apple-proprietary header-set form-data HTML form data RFC1867 related inter-related parts RFC1872 report status reports RFC1892 voice-message voice mail RFC1911 signed digitally signed RFC1847 encrypted encrypted RFC1847 byteranges data RFC2068 message rfc822 ARPANET Mail RFC1521 partial segmented Mail RFC1521 external-body external reference RFC1521 news NNTP posting RFC1036 http Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol RFC2068 application octet-stream generic binary RFC1521 postscript Adobe's Postscript RFC1521 oda Office Document Architecture RFC1521 atomicmail andrew-inset slate wita Wang Info Transfer dec-dx Digital Doc Trans dca-rft IBM Doc Content Arch activemessage rtf Rich Text Format RTF applefile Apple proprietary mac-binhex40 BINHEX-encoded binary RFC1741 news-message-id RFC1036 news-transmission RFC1036 wordperfect5.1 WordPerfect pdf Adobe's PDF zip PK ZIP compressed archive macwriteii Apple Writer II msword MS Word remote-printing printer file RFC1486 mathematica cybercash commonground iges International Graphic Exchange System riscos eshop x400-bp X400 body part RFC1494 sgml Standard Generalized Markup Language RFC1874, SGML cals-1840 RFC1895 pgp-encrypted RFC2015 pgp-signature RFC2015 pgp-keys RFC2015 vnd.framemaker vnd.mif vnd.ms-excel Microsoft Excel Database vnd.ms-powerpoint Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation vnd.ms-project Microsoft Project Schedule vnd.ms-works Microsoft Works Wordprocessing vnd.ms-tnef Microsoft Exchange Text Formatting vnd.svd vnd.music-niff vnd.ms-artgalry vnd.truedoc vnd.koan vnd.street-stream vnd.fdf set-payment-initiation set-payment set-registration-initiation set-registration vnd.seemail vnd.businessobjects vnd.meridian-slingshot vnd.xara sgml-open-catalog vnd.rapid vnd.enliven vnd.japannet-registration-wakeup vnd.japannet-verification-wakeup vnd.japannet-payment-wakeup vnd.japannet-directory-service vnd.intertrust.digibox vnd.intertrust.nncp image jpeg JPEG RFC1521 gif Graphics Interchange Format RFC1521, GIF ief Image Exchange Format RFC1314 g3fax Group3 fax RFC1494 tiff Tag Image File Format cgm Computer Graphics Metafile naplps vnd.dwg vnd.svf vnd.dxf png Portable Network Graphics PNG vnd.fpx vnd.net-fpx audio basic generic binary .au, .snd RFC1521 32kadpcm Internet Voice Mail RFC1911 vnd.qcelp video mpeg RFC1521 quicktime Apple proprietary vnd.vivo vnd.motorola.video vnd.motorola.videop
Unregistered (or experimental) Content Types are supposed to use the prefix "x-". Here are some common experimental Content Types seen on the Web:
Type Subtype Description Reference
---- ------- ----------- ---------
text x-write MS Write
application x-cpio file transfer
x-meme 3D description language
x-gzip GNU compressed archive
x-compress unix compress
x-javascript Java shell
x-tcl TCL shell
x-sh unix shell
x-csh unix cshell
x-gtar GNU archive
x-tar unix archive
x-shar archive
x-zip-compressed PKZIP compressed archive
x-stuffit compress
x-msdownload file transfer/installer
image x-MS-bmp MS bitmap .bmp
x-rgb .rgb
x-portable-pixmap XWindows .ppm
x-portable-graymap XWindows .pgm
x-portable-bitmap XWindows .pbm
x-portable-anymap XWindows .pnm
x-xwindowdump XWindows .xwd
x-xpixmap XWindows .xpm
x-xbitmap XWindows .xbm
x-cmu-raster .ras
audio x-pn-realaudio Real Audio
x-wav MS .wav
x-aif .aif, .aiff, .aifc
video x-msvideo MS .avi
x-world x-vrml Virtually Reality Modeling Language VRML
Registered Character Sets
The content-type text should be accompanied by a character set identifier, as specified in RFC1521. The following Character Sets have been registered with IANA.
-
US-ASCII
ISO-8859-1
ISO-8859-2
ISO-8859-3
ISO-8859-4
ISO-8859-5
ISO-8859-6
ISO-8859-7
ISO-8859-8
ISO-8859-9
Registered Access Types
The content-type text should be accompanied by a character set identifier, as specified in RFC1521. The following Character Sets have been registered with IANA.
-
FTP
ANON-FTP
TFTP
AFS
LOCAL-FILE
MAIL-SERVER
content-id, RFC1873
The following are URL types, used in Uniform Resource Locators:
URL Schemes
ftp File Transfer protocol http Hypertext Transfer Protocol gopher The Gopher protocol mailto Electronic mail address news USENET news nntp USENET news using NNTP access telnet Reference to interactive sessions wais Wide Area Information Servers file Host-specific file names prospero Prospero Directory Service
Registered Encoding Types
Content may be encoded in several formats, as specified in RFC1521. The following Encoding/Conversion Types have been registered with IANA.
-
7BIT
8BIT
BASE64
BINARY
QUOTED-PRINTABLE
For comments/correction/additions regarding this reference, email specs@graphcomp.com.
