§ Mr. AllanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his Department's policy is in respect of the computer file formats used for the(a) distribution and (b) archiving of publicly available documents. [173355]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeThe Department for Education and Skills adhere to the current Government guidelines for publishing documents on www.dfes.gov.uk and other departmental websites. Where possible, documents are provided in as many formats as possible to allow different users and systems access to the information.
Documents are available in the following formats:
Most commonly
- HTML (web pages)
- Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
- Microsoft Word (.doc)
- Rich Text Format (.rtf).
Also used where appropriate
- Microsoft Excel (.xls)
- Comma Separated Variables (.csv)
- Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt)
- Plain Text (.txt).
Out-of-date documents and pages on the DfES website are archived so they can be retrieved if needed. Publications that have been superseded by other information are noted as such.