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<th colspan="3" align="center" id="chaptername">5. Files</th>
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<tr>
<td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="ch02s04s13.html">Prev</a> </td>
<th width="60%" align="center" id="sectionname">5. Files</th>
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<div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<div class="titlepage">
<div>
<div>
<h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="gimp-using-fileformats"></a>5. Files</h2>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a id="id3308430" class="indexterm"></a>
<p>
The GIMP is capable of reading and writing a large variety of
graphics file formats. With the exception of GIMP's native XCF
file type, file handling is done by plug-ins. Thus, it is
relatively easy to extend GIMP to new file types when the need
arises.
</p>
<p>
Not all file types are equally good for all purposes. This part
of the documentation should help you understand the advantages and
disadvantages of each type.
</p>
<div class="simplesect" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<div class="titlepage">
<div>
<div>
<h3 class="title"><a id="id3307308"></a>Opening Files</h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>
There are several ways of opening an existing image in GIMP:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist">
<ul type="disc">
<li>
<p><b>Open File. </b>
The most obvious is to open it using a menu, by choosing
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Open</span>
from either the Toolbox menu or an image menu. This brings
up a File Chooser dialog, allowing you to navigate to the
file and click on its name. This method works well if you
know the name of the file you want to open, and where it is
located. It is not so convenient if you want to find the
file on the basis of a thumbnail.
</p>
<div class="informalfigure">
<div class="mediaobject">
<img src="../images/using/file-open-dialog.png" />
<div class="caption">
<p>
The "File Open" dialog.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>
GIMP 2.2 introduced a new File Chooser that provides several
features to help you navigate quickly to the file you are
looking for. Parhaps the most important is the ability to
create "bookmarks" for folders that you use often. Your
list of bookmarks appears on the left side of the dialog.
The ones at the top ("Home", "Desktop", etc) come
automatically; the others you create using the "Add" button
at the bottom of the list. Double-clicking on a bookmark
takes you straight to that directory.
</p>
<p>
At the center of the dialog appears a listing of the
contents of the selected directory. Subdirectories are
shown at the top of the list, files below them. By default
all files in the directory are listed, but you can restrict
the listing to image files of a specific type using the File
Type selection menu that appears beneath the directory
listing.
</p>
<p>
When you click on a file entry in the listing, if it is an
image file, a preview will appear on the right side of the
dialog, along with some basic information about the
properties of the image. Note that previews are cached when
they are generated, and there are some things you can do
that may cause a preview to be incorrect. If you suspect
that this may be happening, you can force a new preview to
be generated by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking in
the Preview area.
</p>
<p>
One thing that strikes many people when they first see the
File Open dialog is that there is no way to enter the name
of the file using the keyboard. Actually this can be done,
but the feature is a bit hidden: if you type
<span><b class="keycap">Ctrl</b></span>-<span><b class="keycap">L</b></span>
with the dialog focused, an "Open Location" dialog pops up,
with a space to type the file name. This dialog is
described in more detail below.
</p>
<div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<table border="0" summary="Note">
<tr>
<td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25">
<img alt="[Note]" src="../images/note.png" />
</td>
<th align="left">Note</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="left" valign="top">
<p>
In the great majority of cases, if you select a file name
from the list, and click the "Open" button in the lower
right corner or the dialog, GIMP will automatically
determine the file type for you. On rare occasions,
mainly if the file type is unusual and the name lacks a
meaningful extension, this may fail. If this happens, you
can tell GIMP specifically what type of file it is by
expanding the "Select File Type" option at the bottom of
the dialog, and choosing an entry from the list that
appears. More commonly, though, if GIMP fails to open an
image file, it is either corrupt or not in a supported
format.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Open Location. </b>
If instead of a file name, you have a URI (i.e., a web
address) for the image, you can open it using the menu, by
choosing
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Open Location</span>
from either the Toolbox menu or an image menu. This brings
up a small dialog that allows you to enter the URI.
</p>
<div class="informalfigure">
<div class="mediaobject">
<img src="../images/using/file-open-dialog-location.png" />
<div class="caption">
<p>
The "Open Location" dialog.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Open Recent. </b>
If the image is one that you previously created using GIMP,
perhaps the easiest way to open it is from the menu, using
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Open Recent</span>.
This gives you a scrollable list of the images you
have most recently worked on in, with icons beside them.
You need only select the one you want, and it will be
opened.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>File Browser. </b>
If you have associated the file type of the image with GIMP,
either when you installed GIMP or later, then you can
navigate to the file using a file manager (such as Nautilus
in Linux, or Windows Explorer in Windows), and once you have
found it, double-click on the icon. If things are set up
properly, this will cause the image to open in GIMP.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Drag and Drop. </b>
Alternatively, once you have found the file, you can click
on its icon and drag it into the GIMP Toolbox. (If instead
you drag it into an existing GIMP image, it will be added to
that image as a new layer or set of layers.)
</p>
<p>
For many applications, you can click on a displayed image (a
full image, not just a thumbnail) and drag it into the GIMP
toolbox.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Copy and Paste. </b>
For some applications, if the application gives you a
way of copying the image to the clipboard, you can then open
the image in GIMP by choosing
<span class="guimenu">File</span>-><span class="guisubmenu">Acquire</span>-><span class="guimenuitem">Paste as New</span>
from the Toolbox menu. Support for this is somewhat
variable, however, so your best bet is to try it and see
whether it works.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Image Browser. </b>
In Linux, you might want to take a look at a program called
<span class="application">gthumb</span>, an image-management
application that in several ways nicely complements GIMP.
In <span class="application">gthumb</span>, you can cause an image
to open in GIMP either by right-clicking on the icon and
selecting GIMP from among the list of options, or by
dragging the icon into the GIMP Toolbox. See the <a href="http://gthumb.sourceforge.net" target="_top">gthumb home page</a>
for more information.
Other similar applications :
<a href="http://gqview.sourceforge.net" target="_top">gqview</a>,
<a href="http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.html" target="_top">xnview</a>
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><a id="gimp-file-open-by-extension"></a>
When you open a file, using the File menu or any other method,
GIMP needs to determine what type of file it is. Unless there
is no alternative, GIMP does not simply rely on the extension
(such as ".jpg") to determine the file type, because extensions
are not reliable: they vary from system to system; any file can
be renamed to have any extension; and there are many reasons why
a file name might lack an extension. Instead, GIMP first tries
to recognize a file by examining its contents: most of the
commonly used graphics file formats have "magic headers" that
permit them to be recognized. Only if the magic yields no
result does GIMP resort to using the extension.
</p>
</div>
<div class="simplesect" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<div class="titlepage">
<div>
<div>
<h3 class="title"><a id="gimp-export-dialog"></a>Saving Files</h3>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<a id="gimp-export-confirm-dialog"></a>
<p>
There are several commands for saving images. A list, and
information on how to use them, can be found in the section
covering the <a href="ch05s02.html" title="2. File">File
menu</a>.
</p>
<p>
GIMP allows you to save the images you create in a wide variety
of formats. It is important to realize that the only format
capable of saving <span class="emphasis"><em>all</em></span> of the information in
an image, including layers, transparency, etc., is GIMP's native
XCF format. Every other format preserves some image properties
and loses others. When you save an image, GIMP tries to let you
know about this, but basically it is up to you to understand the
capabilities of the format you choose.
</p>
<div class="informalfigure">
<div class="mediaobject">
<img src="../images/using/export-dialog-en.png" />
<div class="caption">
<p>Example of an Export dialog</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>
As stated above, there is no file format, with the exception of
GIMP's native <a href="go01.html#gimp-xcf-save">XCF</a> format,
that is capable of storing all the data in a GIMP image. When
you ask to save an image in a format that will not completely
represent it, GIMP notifies you of this, tells you what kind of
information will be lost, and asks you whether you would like to
"export" the image in a form that the file type can handle.
Exporting an image does not modify the image itself, so you do
not lose anything by doing this.
</p>
<div class="note" style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<table border="0" summary="Note">
<tr>
<td rowspan="2" align="center" valign="top" width="25">
<img alt="[Note]" src="../images/note.png" />
</td>
<th align="left">Note</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="left" valign="top">
<p>
When you close an image (possibly by
quitting GIMP), you are warned if the image is "dirty"; that is,
if it has been changed without subsequently being saved. Saving
an image in any file format will cause the image to be
considered "not dirty", even if the file format does not
represent all of the information from the image.
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
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<tr>
<td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">4.13. Stroking a Selection or Path </td>
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