What is the Full Form of GIF ?

GIF – Graphics Interchange Format

Graphics Interchange Format is bit-mapped graphics file format, having file extension *.gif. It was developed in 1987 by CompuServe, with the motto of developing platform independent image format. The compression in GIF is done using Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique, which reduces the file size without degrading the quality of image.

Graphics Interchange Format uses 8 bit format which supports 256 colours. Due to its small size and portability feature, it has been widespread over the Internet.

Versions of GIF

• The first version of Graphics Interchange Format was introduced in 1987 and is denoted as GIF87a.
• Its extended version came in 1989, called GIF89a, which is used until today as the standard format.