A service mark used for a raster-based color graphics file format, often used on the World Wide Web to store graphics. graphics interchange format a type of computer file that contains images and is used on the Internet. in full Graphics Interchange Format Standard computer file format for graphic images. GIF files use data compression to reduce the file size. The original version of the format was developed by CompuServe in 1987. The current version supports animated GIFs (a graphics image that moves). GIF and JPEG are the most commonly used graphics formats on the Internet