“Format comes from the Latin formatus — shaped or formed. The word that now describes a file extension once described the physical dimensions of a printed book.”
Latin forma meant shape, mold, or appearance. Formare was to give form to something. The past participle formatum described something that had been shaped or given form. In French, format described the physical dimensions of a book — determined by how many times the printer folded the original sheet: folio (one fold), quarto (two), octavo (three). A book's format was its physical shape.
English borrowed 'format' in the 19th century for print and publishing. A newspaper's format described its physical dimensions and layout — broadsheet versus tabloid. Broadcasters in the 20th century extended 'format' to mean the structure of a radio or television programme: the news format, the talk show format, the magazine format.
Computing adopted format for the structure of stored data. A file format specifies how data is organized within a file — where the header is, how data is encoded, what markers separate records. JPEG, MP3, PDF, DOCX: each is a format, a specified shape imposed on digital information. To format a disk was to impose structure on blank storage, making it readable.
Today format carries all its meanings simultaneously. A PDF is a format (file structure). A broadsheet is a format (physical shape). A podcast is a format (content structure). The Latin forma — the mold that gives shape to liquid material — underlies all of them.
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Every file format is a Latin mold: a specified shape into which data is poured. JPEG says: this is how an image should be structured. PDF says: this is how a document should be preserved. The format gives the forma.
The book printers who counted folds were doing what every software engineer does: deciding in advance what shape information will take. Forma has not changed. The material has.
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