The file extension IIF is associated with Intuit QuickBooks, which is an application used for working with financial data. Intuit QuickBooks is typically used for small business accounting and can also be used for personal finance purposes.
IIF file extensions are a data file type that contains financial information and instructions which pertain to exporting financial data to another application. IIF files are typically in a plain text format and have a similarity to a TSV file, which is a tab delimited file where each field within a financial record is indicated with a tab. This allows to the file to be easily imported into a database and exported to other applications.
IIF file extensions are a proprietary file format and are also known as an Intuit Interchange File. They are in tab-based text format since QuickBooks uses this proprietary format to facilitate importing and exporting of files. This allows the files to be used with a number of different applications.
How to Open IIF Files
Since IIF files can be opened with multiple programs and applications, double click on the file to see if it will automatically open in a default program you have installed on your PC. IIF files can consist of different file types, so you may already have a program which will open the file.
If you usŅ Windows, you can open IIF file using Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2013, which is available on the Inuit website. You can also open IIF files using Microsoft Excel, which is part of the Microsoft Office Suite of productivity applications. In order to open an IIF file using Excel, you must open the file in QuickBooks, click on File, choose Export, and then select the XLS format.
If you use Mac OS X, you can open IIF file extensions using Intuit QuickBooks for Mac 2013, which is available for download on the Inuit website. You can also use Microsoft Excel 2011 by exporting the file extension IIF to XLS.
As an added note, you can open IIF files which have been exported to the XLS format using OpenOffice spreadsheet, which is part of the OpenOffice suite of productivity applications. Open Office is available as a free download on the OpenOffice.org website and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and the Linux operating system.
You can also opt to open IIF files using any text editing program. If you use Windows, you can open IIF files with WordPad, Notepad, Open Office Writer, or Microsoft Word. For Mac OS X, you can open IIF files using Apple TextEdit, TextMate, Apple Pages, or MacVim. For the Linux operating system, you can use AbiWord, gEdit, Nano Editor, or Vim.
