formatting

for·mat  (fôrmt)

n.

1. A plan for the organization and arrangement of a specified production.

2. The material form or layout of a publication.

3. Computer Science

a. The arrangement of data for storage or display.

b. A method for achieving such an arrangement.

tr.v. for·mat·ted, for·mat·ting, for·mats

1. To plan or arrange in a specified form: They formatted the conference so that each speaker had less than 15 minutes to deliver a paper.

2. Computer Science

a. To divide (a disk) into marked sectors so that it may store data.

b. To determine the arrangement of (data) for storage or display.

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[French, ultimately from Latin frmtus, past participle of frmre, to form, from frma, form.]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

formatting - the organization of information according to preset specifications (usually for computer processing) data format, data formatting, format computer, computing device, computing machine, data processor, electronic computer, information processing system - a machine for performing calculations automatically info, information - a message received and understood high-level formatting - (computer science) the format for the root directory and the file allocation tables and other basic configurations initialisation, initialization, low-level formatting - (computer science) the format of sectors on the surface of a hard disk drive so that the operating system can access them and setting a starting position