Formats
=======

Bio-Formats supports reading over 140 different file formats, and writing several common open formats.
The :doc:`dataset-table` explains the file extension you should choose to open/import a dataset in any
of these formats, while the :doc:`/supported-formats` table lists all of the
formats and gives an indication of how well they are supported and whether
Bio-Formats can write, as well as read, each format.  The
:doc:`/metadata-summary` table shows an overview of the :doc:`OME data model
</about/index>` fields populated for each format.

Further information on each individual format is also provided (click on
the entries in the supported formats table).

**We are always looking for examples of files to help us provide better
support for different formats.** If you would like to help, you can upload
files to the `Bio-Formats Zenodo community <https://zenodo.org/communities/bio-formats>`_ and
let us know. If you have any questions, or would prefer not to use Zenodo, please contact us
via the :imagesc:`Image.sc forum <tag/bio-formats>`.
If your format is already supported, please refer to the 'we would like to
have' section on the individual page for that format, to see if your dataset
would be useful to us.

All the example files we have permission to share publicly are freely
available from our `sample image downloads site <https://downloads.openmicroscopy.org/images/>`_.

.. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
    
    dataset-table
    /supported-formats
    /metadata-summary
    pattern-file
    precompressed
    options
