also why doesn’t changing the file name from .pptx to .pdf work ?
In: Technology
The different file types are sort of like different languages. One program can understand how to read one file, but may not know how to read another file, even if they’re both pictures. If you want to program to be able to understand the file, you need to translate it to the format it’s familiar with. It’s sort of like having a book written in French. If you want an English speaker to be able to understand the book, you’ll need to translate it to English.
File extensions are just hints for program. If you have a pptx file, Powerpoint will look at that and say, “oh, I can open that.” But changing the extension doesn’t translate the whole file. It’s basically like taking book written in French and putting it in the English section of the library. English speakers will pick it up and try to read it, but they‘ll quickly realize they can’t understand it.
because the data is different.
a pptx file is secretly just a zip file containing a bunch of xml (basically the same as html) files describing the content of the document. you can even rename it to .zip and extract it. Its designed to be easily edited
a pdf is basically an image file designed for looking like it was printed. its designed to look the same on every device and sre very difficult to modify.
they are completely different internal structure.
a pptx to pdf converter just prints the pptx file and saves the resulting image as a pdf.
Each file type is like a bowl of information. And it has a label on it (the file extension) telling you what it is. If you have a bowl of red liquid labelled gazpacho, calling it spaghetti sauce isn’t going to turn it into spaghetti sauce. Some of the ingredients are off (and so is the temperature). So changing the label doesn’t work. But if you have some way to remove the cucumber from the gazpacho, boil down the tomato sauce, and throw in some oregano and some other spices, you can turn it into spaghetti sauce.
That’s what a file convertor does. It not only changes the label of the file, it changes the contents to match the label.
The type of file is basically a language. You can translate from one language to another.
The extension (.pptx, .pdf, etc) is just a label. Taking a .pptx and renaming it to .pdf is roughly equivalent to taking a book written in Spanish and writing “this is English” on it with a marker. You can do that, but if you hand it to a person (computer program) who only speaks English (can only understand the pdf format), they’re still not gonna be able to use it.
Changing the file name extension is like slapping a sticker on your chest “Richard”. Is your name now legally Richard? Fuck no. The filename is just a sticker. I’m not even sure how you logically tried to reason that out.
File converters work by being able to read the original format in the first place. For example image file converters are programmed to recognize common image formats like JPG and GIF. If you give them a file saved in a format like TIFF that they aren’t programmed for they won’t be able to open them. There’s nothing complicated about this shit. Either they’ve been programmed to recognize a format or not. That’s it.
It’s the same way for the conversion. They’ve been programmed to save the data in several formats. If they haven’t been programmed to output PDF then they can’t convert to PDF.
In addition to the other answers, which are correct, I want to point out something interesting.
As you know, the file extension is just a hint for the system to know which program to use, and the program knows how to read it.
Some file extensions *can* actually be renamed because the data inside is the same. For example you can rename a .PPTX to .zip, and open it up like a zip file to see all the pictures and other stuff inside. Try it yourself!
This is because a pptx file is essentially a zip file, the .pptx extension just tells the system to open it in PowerPoint and PowerPoint knows what to do with it.
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