[thelist] Re: Encoding vs. Type

[Carol Stein]

Two completely absolutely utterly separate things, what you're calling encoding and type.
First, what you call "type" is merely the extension of a file. It is arbitrary, and you can always rename a file. By convention, however, Windows associates certain extensions with programs, such that if you double-click a file called something.doc, the OS thinks Word should open it. And Word automatically saves its data files with that doc extension, but you can ALWAYS rename a file.

Now, encoding (related to PAGE) has to do with what character set you're using. For example, my word processor is set (by me) to use the Windows (7J, I think) encoding, or "code page," but sometimes, say if I want some Greek letters for an equation, I'll swap it to a different code set, such that the 7 or 8 bits (binary digits) that correspond to the non-ASCII set stand for rho instead of accented e (or whatever -- I'm picking arbitrary examples here). Okay? If not clear, see me off-list.

Cheers --
Carol
techwatcher at accesswriters.com

>  Can someone please explain to me the difference between encoding and
>  the type of file (by that I mean, say the extension, like .doc is
>  generally considered a document) -- and how does it effect us as web
>  designers?
>
>  Why would someone want to set the encoding type to something that
>  the file wasn't(?) -- or is that the right way to think about it?