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<sect1 id="sect-files-overview">
<title>Files in Gnumeric</title>
<!-- TODO: move the "understanding the filesystem" from 'opening' to here. -->
<para>
&gnum; stores its information by creating files and re-opening
these files during a future session. Saving information to files
also allows a user to send the information to others.
</para>
<para>
The default file format for &gnum; is based on the eXtensible
Markup Language (XML). By default, files are saved as text files,
consisting of XML, which are then compressed using the library of
the <application>gzip</application> program. The extension for
&gnum; files is <literal>.gnumeric</literal> on platforms which
support file extensions of any size, <literal>.gnum</literal> for
systems which restrict extensions to four letters, or
<literal>.gnm</literal> for systems which restrict extensions to
three letters.
</para>
<para>
&gnum; can also open or save files in a number of other file
formats. The project prides itself for the work reverse
engineering and supporting the file formats used by Microsoft
Excel. &gnum; can use the Excel file format as if it were the
native file format, meaning that &gnum; can store and retrieve
essentially every aspect of a worksheet using the Excel
format. Similarly, &gnum; supports the OASIS standard Open Office
XML file format as if it were the native format.
</para>
<warning>
<para>
&gnum; cannot delete files from the file system. &gnum; can open
existing files and create new files but cannot delete files once
they are created. Files can be deleted using a file browser such
as <application>Nautilus</application> on the GNOME desktop or
using the command-line program <application>rm</application>.
</para>
</warning>
<note>
<para>
This chapter discusses working with actual files. It is also
possible to import data into &gnum; using the clipboard by
copying either text or html table information in another program
and then pasting the resulting data into a worksheet. See <xref
linkend="sect-movecopy-xclipboard"/> for details.
</para>
</note>
<para>
Text files are often used to store data, using many different
systems to structure the data such as using commas, tabs or spaces
to separate values. &gnum; features a flexible system that enables
users to define exactly the structure of the text file to be
opened or saved.
</para>
<para>
&gnum; can be integrated with an email client to allow files to be
sent directly as attachments to an electronic mail message.
</para>
<para>
&gnum; also features a command-line tool called
<application>ssconvert</application> to convert files between any
of the file formats which it supports.
</para>
</sect1>
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