isr.co.ro : glossary GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) An acronym, surprisingly pronounced "jiff," for Graphics Interchange Format, an image format developed by CompuServe that's also widely used on the Internet for both stand-alone graphic documents and for graphic elements of Web pages. You may see the suffix "gif" on Internet files. GIF files specify a raster (point by point) view of images transmitted in a somewhat compressed format, so they need either a built-in or stand-alone GIF viewer to decompress and display the contained picture. Many users now prefer "JPEG" (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files for large images because they are more highly compressed and so speed up transfers. If you're using the World Wide Web service through one of the common browser programs, you can usually view these types of images directly while you're still online, although it may take up to a few minutes to transfer the data for a larger detailed image. Or, you can download these types of image files for later display or editing with a range of viewer and graphics editing programs.