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BlackBerry Supported File Formats (Email and Media)
What kinds of files will a BlackBerry open as email attachments?
What kinds of audio and video files will a BlackBerry play?
Here’s an update from Research in Motion (RIM) on which file formats are supported by current BlackBerry Device Software and BlackBerry Internet Service.
Below are supported file formats assuming you have:
- BlackBerry Operating System 4.5 (see my article on upgrading to 4.5)
- BlackBerry Internet Service 2.5 (this applies to your wireless carrier, not your phone)
Email Attachments
You should be able to download, view, and edit the following types of attachments in their native file formats:
- .zip
- .txt
- .html
- Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
- WordPerfect (.wpd)
- Microsoft Word (.doc) [Word 97-2003, not 2007 (.docx)*]
- Microsoft Excel (.xls) [Excel 97-2003, not 2007 (.xlsx)*]
- Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) [PowerPoint 97-2003, not 2007 (.pptx)*]
- Audio file formats (see next section)
- Video file formats (see next section)
Media Files
You generally should be able to play the following music and video file formats, although there are numerous parameters in the original conversion of the files that can be critical for playback compatibility and quality (see the original RIM knowledgebase article for details and exceptions):
Music
- ACC
- AMR
- MIDI
- MP3
- WAV
- WMA 9 and 10
Video
- MPEG-4 (Part 2, Simple)
- MPEG-4 (Part 2, Advanced Simple)
- H.263 (Profile 0 and 3)
- WMV 9 (Simple)
- avi
- mov
- 3gp
- mp4
- m4v
- mpg
Again, these are generally supported but with exceptions.
Reference
This information is based on RIM’s BlackBerry knowledge base articles KB15253 and KB05482. If you are converting music or video, you absolutely must read those articles.
* Ask your email senders who use Office 2007 to save their Office documents in Office 97-2003 format before attaching files to emails sent to your BlackBerry.
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5 comments on this post
I installed OS 4.5 and everything worked fine. I am using DM 4.6 and a Verizon customer. I have been unable to edit Word (or any) documents. When I download one, I get a message that states “You are about to download a file thatcannot be viewed on your Blackberry device. Continue? Yes/No” When I proceed to download it and then attempt to open it, I get the message “Unable to display file/path/document”, where path and document represent the location and name of the file. I’ve tried to storing the document on the memory card and on the device memory and the result is the same. Am I doing something wrong?
Rick,
First, you may not have installed “Documents to Go” when you upgraded (I didn’t either–oops!). See this article that might help: http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB16330&sliceId=SAL_Public.
Next, to get the full power of “Documents to Go,” you may want to consider upgrading (not cheap) to a more powerful version of this app. See it here: http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB16330&sliceId=SAL_Public.
I apologize that I haven’t had time to investigate this further. When I get time, I will. Please share with me/us what you learn. Thanks!
Kelly
Thank you so much for your assistance. Your instructions worked for me. I really don’t know how I would have known this was a problem without you guiding me in the right direction. There were no install notes from Verizon or Blackberry that would have helped me figure this out on my own. One additional note that I would add for others is that after they install the Documents to Go software, they have to activate it before it will work. I found there was a free upgrade that I had to install also that gave me the ability to work with Office 2007 files. Things are working fine now. Thanks for your priceless, free advice.
Rick,
Thanks for your kind words. I am planning to write more about Documents To Go (possibly both the free and for-pay editions) in the near future. That’s lot more to say about it.
Kelly
Excellent stuff, thankyou Rick.
Looking forward to your next article.