Opening a GTF File

The GTF file type is primarily associated with Cufflinks.

GTF	File extension: GTF
	File type:	plain text file

What is a GTF file?

GTF files mostly belong to Cufflinks. GTF files are mainly used as gene annotation files in bioinformatics. They store details on gene structures, such as exon positions, transcript boundaries, and related features.
Each line in a GTF file follows a tab-delimited format with columns for the source, feature type, start and end coordinates, and additional attributes.

Primary Use: Storing gene transfer data for genomics projects.

Common Tools: Programs like GENCODE, Cufflinks, and Ensembl routinely process these files.

Viewing: They can be opened with any text editor (such as Notepad++), but specialized bioinformatics software gives a more structured view.

FilExt.com tip: This file format is plain text and sometimes compressed (e.g., with GZIP). While a few GTF files are used for textures, GIS outputs, or even font data, the majority represent gene annotation data used to manage genome information.

How to open a GTF file

You need a suitable software like Cufflinks to open a GTF file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your GTF file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a GTF file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online GTF Text Viewer

Choose your .gtf file to analyze

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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GTF file format:

Every file has a defined file format, i.e. how the data is arranged in the file. A file format is determined by the file extension and signature, so JPEG images have the extension .jpg and the first bytes in the file are ÿØÿ. If the file extension does not match the file format, double-clicking on the file will cause an error upon opening. Exact knowledge of the format is therefore important in order to solve problems occurring in files. Below is our analysis of the GTF files:

The GTF file extension is quite common and is used by many programs, each with its own file format. The file formats most commonly found in GTF files are:

• 15% of all GTF files start with the magic bytes chr, which are always the first bytes of this file format. The contents of these files can even be read by a human. A typical file size is 150 MB. This file type is based on cutting-edge technology. The files contain the following words: gene_id, transcript_id, exon, chr1, gene_name and transcript. The file name hg38.ensGene.gtf is typical for these files. Files like these are sometimes connected to gene, known, transcripts, genes, ncbi, plex, transcript, sapiens, variant, merged, exon, grch and homo.
• 15% of all GTF files start with the magic bytes 23 23, which are always the first bytes of this file format. These files are text files, so they contain words and text. The file size is in the range of 3 MB to 1 GB. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. Ensembl, ##description: evidence-based, ##provider: GENCODE, ##format: gtf, date, evidence-based annotation of the human genome, human genome, gene, (GRCh38), version, ##contact: gencode-help-ebi-ac.uk, HAVANA and chr1. A usual file name is gencode.v22.annotation.gtf. These files are attributed to annotation, noncoding, long, rnas, wayconspseudos, contigs, patched, model, patch, scaff, hapl and smel.

All other GTF files (70%) have no consistent format, the following 12 formats can be found: GZIP, gen, Geological, tring and gtf. Often described as musculus, grcm, stringtie, genomic, galaxy or data. If you want to find out which format your GTF file belongs to, just click on the button "Choose your .gtf file to analyze".