RFC 1521 - MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) says in Appendix E "In order to ensure that the set of such values is developed in an orderly, well-specified, and public manner, MIME defines a registration process which uses the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) as a central registry for such values." See Also: Media Types at IANA Helpers and Plug-In's, RFC 1341 Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies List at NTT/Verio List at Duke mediaTypes at dsi
type=application, text, audio, image, video, message, model, multipart
Other types: magnus-internal, wwwserver, drawing, model,
enc=x-gzip, x-compress, x-uuencode
type=magnus-internal - By convention, all values of type that require the server to do something other than just send the requested resource to the client start with magnus-internal/.
Mime types for common applications (e.g. MS Office) have changed several times. Only MS Word was registered (by someone other than Microsoft) with IANA, so the others are unofficial. At the end of 1995 a convention of preceding unofficial names with x- was adopted. So Mime types like application/msexcel which was in common use at the time changed to application/x-msexcel. A new convention was adopted in 1997. Note: application/msword does not change because msword is an officially registered mime type. Changes at the end of 1997 OLD NEW x-msexcel vnd.ms-excel x-mspowerpoint vnd.ms-powerpoint x-msproject vnd.ms-project x-framemaker vnd.framemaker x-mif vnd.mif x-mshelp winhlp application/msword .doc,.dot MS Word (Windows format) (1) application/vnd.framemaker .frm,.mif,.fm3,.fm4,.mk FrameMaker (2) application/vnd.ms-excel .xls,.xlc MS Excel (spreadsheet, chart) application/sylk .slk (.SYLK) Symbolic Link WingZ/Excel/Lotus (old MultiPlan format) application/vnd.ms-powerpoint .ppt MS Powerpoint application/x-xsb .xsb,.sb Superbook text/x-sgml .sgm (.SGML) Standard Generalized Markup Lang. application/SGML-Open-Catalog (Future versions of Superbook should read SGML) application/x-notes .ntf,nsf Lotus Notes application/vnd.lotus-organizer .or2 Lotus Organizer application/pdf .pdf Portable Document Format (Adobe Acrobat) application/vnd.ms-project .mpt,.mpp MS Project application/x-coreldrw .cdr Corel Draw application/winhlp .hlp Windows Help image/tiff .tif * * * (1) We recommend storing Word Docs as Word for Windows format (.doc) rather than Mac format (.mcw) for better portability of graphics. (2) .fm which was used from FrameMaker 3 conflicted with .fm which was already used for FileMaker Pro. Don Pratt proposed using .fm3 for FrameMaker 3 See Notes on adding viewers Defaults: (1) Air NCSA Microsoft Official Netscape Mosaic Server WWW Server image/gif .gif * * * * * image/jpeg .jpg,.jpeg,.jpe * * * * * audio/basic .au,.snd * * * * * audio/x-wav .wav * * * audio/wav .wave,.wav * video/quicktime .qt,.mov * * * * video/mpeg .mpeg,.mpg * * * * * video/x-msvideo .avi * * * video/msvideo .avi * video/avi .avi * text/richtext .rtx * *(W) * text/x-sgml .sgm * appl./postscript .ps,.eps,.ai * * * * * application/rtf .rtf * * * * application/x-rtf .rtf * application/msword .doc * * * application/mac-binhex40 .hqx * * * * application/macbinhex40 .hqx * * * * application/x-macbinary .bin * application/octet-stream .bin * * application/octet-stream .exe * * application/x-msdownload .exe * application/x-stuffit .sit * application/x-tar .tar * * application/x-gtar .gtar * application/x-troff-man .man *(W) * Defaults: (1) Air NCSA Microsoft Official Netscape Mosaic Server WWW Server appl./x-compressed .zip,z,gz *(M) appl./zip .zip * * * appl./x-compress .Z *(W) * appl./x-zip-compressed .zip *(W) x appl./x-gzip .gz *(W) x appl./x-gzip-compressed .gz *(W) x image/pict .pict * image/targa .targa,.tga * image/tiff .tiff,.tif * * * * image/x-xbitmap .xbm * * image/x-win-bmp .bmp * image/x-MS-bmp .bmp * image/x-mspaint .bmp * image/x-msmetafile .wmf * image/x-wmf .wmf * image/ief .ief *(W) image/x-rgb .rgb *(W) image/x-portable-anymap .pnm *(W) image/x-portable-bitmap .pbm *(W) image/x-portable-graymap .pgm *(W) image/x-portable-pixmap .ppm *(W) image/x-xwindowdump .xwd *(W) image/x-xpixmap .xpm *(W) image/x-xbitmap .xbm *(W) image/x-cmu-raster .ras *(W) audio/aiff .aiff,.aif audio/x-aiff .aiff,.aif * * audio/x-midi .mid * appl/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig .pac *(W) appl/x-javascript .js,.ls,.mocha *(W) appl/x-tcl .tcl *(W) appl/x-sh .sh *(W) appl/x-csh .csh *(W) appl/x-cpio .cpio *(W) appl/x-shar .shar *(W) appl/fractals .fif *(W) appl/x-texinfo .texi *(W) appl/x-dvi .dvi *(W) appl/x-latex .latex *(W) appl/x-tex .tex *(W) ----- New with Explorer 4 image/x-png png Portable Network Graphics image/pjpeg image/x-jg image/x-emf appplication/base64 application/pdf pdf Portable Document Format (Adobe) application/java application/x-msdownload exe * x - In srm.conf on server (W/M)- Windows/Mac version of Netscape only (1) The official list of registered MIME (Media) types is at IANA Non-standard MIME types should begin with an x. e.g. x-tar See below for other official/standard MIME types Other common UNIX types in conf/srm.conf and conf/mime.types on httpd servers. application/x-dvi dvi TeX DVI (Device Independent)See Also:
File Name Extension in Default httpd config. in ver. 2.2 2/94 and in Tony Sanders (sanders@bsdi.com) list at standard MIME types are marked `*' non-standard types with security concerns are marked `=' Content-Type: Description *application/activemessage *application/andrew-inset Andrew-inset *application/applefile *application/atomicmail Atomicmail *application/dca-rft IBM Doc Content Arch *application/dec-dx Digital Doc Transfer *application/mac-binhex40 *application/macwriteii *application/msword *application/news-message-id RFC 1036 *application/news-transmission RFC 1036 *application/octet-stream bin Uninterpreted Binary Data *application/oda oda *application/pdf pdf Portable Document Format (Adobe) *application/postscript ai eps ps PostScript *application/remote-printing RFC 1486 *application/rtf rtf RTF *application/slate Slate *application/wita Wang Info Transfer *application/wordperfect5.1 =application/x-csh csh CSH Script (major danger) =application/x-dvi dvi TeX DVI (Device Independent) application/x-hdf hdf NCSA HDF data file =application/x-latex latex LaTeX Source application/x-netcdf nc cdf Unidata netCDF data file =application/x-sh sh SH Script (major danger) =application/x-tcl tcl TCL Script (major danger) =application/x-tex tex TeX Source =application/x-texinfo texinfo texi Texinfo =application/x-troff t tr roff Troff =application/x-troff-man man Troff w/MAN Macros =application/x-troff-me me Troff w/ME Macros =application/x-troff-ms ms Troff w/MS Macros application/x-wais-source src WAIS Source *application/zip zip PKZIP =application/x-bcpio bcpio Old Binary CPIO =application/x-cpio cpio IEEE Std1003.2 (``POSIX'') CPIO =application/x-gtar gtar Gnu Tar =application/x-shar shar Sh Shar =application/x-sv4cpio sv4cpio SVR4 CPIO =application/x-sv4crc sv4crc SVR4 CPIO w/CRC =application/x-tar tar 4.3BSD Tar =application/x-ustar ustar IEEE Std1003.2 (``POSIX'') Tar application/x-mif Maker Interchange Format *audio/basic au snd 8-bit u-law [PCM] / 8000 Hz audio/x-aiff aif aiff aifc audio/x-wav wav MS Windows+ WAVE format audio/x-pn-realaudio ram Real Audio Player audio/x-mpeg mp2 MPEG Audio *image/gif gif Graphics Interchange Format *image/ief ief Image Exchange Format *image/jpeg jpeg jpg jpe *image/tiff tiff tif Tagged Image File Format image/x-cmu-raster ras image/x-portable-anymap pnm PBM Anymap Format image/x-portable-bitmap pbm PBM Bitmap Format image/x-portable-graymap pgm PBM Graymap Format image/x-portable-pixmap ppm PBM Pixmap Format image/x-portable-?? png Portable Network Graphics image/x-png png Portable Network Graphics image/x-rgb rgb image/x-xbitmap xbm X Bitmaps image/x-xpixmap xpm X Pixmap format image/x-xwindowdump xwd X Window Dump (xwd) image/g3fax g3f Group III FAX image/cgm cgm Computer Graphics Metafile - Harvard Graphics (object) *message/external-body *message/news *message/partial *message/rfc822 *multipart/alternative *multipart/appledouble *multipart/digest *multipart/mixed *multipart/parallel *multipart/header-set *multipart/form-data *multipart/report text/html html htm HTML *text/plain txt Plain Text text/plain bas BASIC program text/plain c C program *text/richtext rtx MIME Richtext format text/enriched a refinement of "text/richtext" *text/tab-separated-values tsv Tab Separated Values text/x-setext etx Structure Enchanced Text *video/mpeg mpeg mpg mpe Motion Picture Experts Group *video/quicktime qt mov QuickTime video/x-msvideo avi Microsoft Video for Windows video/x-sgi-movie movie SGI "movieplayer" movie video/vdo vdo VDOLive www/* Reserved Internal WWW type application/x-msaccess mdb application/x-mscardfile crd application/x-msclip clp application/x-msmediaview m13 application/x-msmediaview m14 application/x-msmoney mny application/x-mspif pif Program Information File (Windows) application/x-mspowerpoint ppt application/x-mspublisher pub application/x-msschedplus cal application/x-msterminal trm application/x-msworks wks application/x-mswrite wri application/mathmetica ma Mathmetica Notebook application/envoy evy Novell Formatted Doc. Distr. format application/vis5d v5d 5-D data set visualization +model/iges igs IGES CAD Object +model/mesh msh 2 and 2-D visualization x-world/x-vrml wrl VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Lang. + model is a new mime type still under review as of 2/1/96