About Dreamweaver files

You can work with a variety of file types in Dreamweaver. The primary kind of file you will work with is the HTML file. HTML files--or Hypertext Markup Language files--contain the tag-based language responsible for displaying a web page in a browser. You can save HTML files with either the .html or .htm extension. Dreamweaver saves files using the .html extension by default.

Following are some of the other common file types you might use when working in Dreamweaver:

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheet files, have a .css extension. They are used to format HTML content and control the positioning of various page elements. For more information on working with these types of files, see Understanding Cascading Style Sheets in Using Dreamweaver.

GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format files, have a .gif extension. GIF format is a popular web graphic format for cartoons, logos, graphics with transparent areas, and animations. GIFs contain a maximum of 256 colors.

JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group files (named after the organization that created the format), have a .jpg extension, and are usually photographs or high-color images. The JPEG format is best for digital or scanned photographs, images using textures, images with gradient color transitions, and any images that require more than 256 colors.

XML, or Extensible Markup Language files, have a .xml extension. They contain data in a raw form that can be formatted using XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language). For more information on working with these types of files, see Displaying XML Data in Web Pages in Using Dreamweaver.

XSL, or Extensible Stylesheet Language files, have a .xsl or .xslt extension. They are used to style XML data that you want to display on a web page. For more information on working with these types of files, see Displaying XML Data in Web Pages in Using Dreamweaver.

CFML, or ColdFusion Markup Language files, have a .cfm extension. They are used to process dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Building ColdFusion Applications Rapidly in Using Dreamweaver.

ASPX, or ASP.NET files, have a .aspx extension. They are used to process dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Building ASP.NET Applications Rapidly in Using Dreamweaver.

PHP, or PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor files, have a .php extension. They are used to process dynamic pages. For more information on working with these types of files, see Building PHP Applications Rapidly in Using Dreamweaver.