I need to store non-office files in Sharepoint, and I'd like to know how to define their Content Type. The main 'outside' file types will be pdfs, Sibelius files (notation software) and Photoshop .psd files. I want to create new content types for these to associate certain metadata with the files.
Should I create content types for these files inheriting from "Document" or "Unknown Document Type"? What implications does each option have?
Thanks.
The "Unknown Document Type" content type is used when doing automatic document parsing to allow documents that have a content type that is not necessarily already associated with a library to be moved into that library without overwriting their existing content type.
You can read a little more about that here.
If you are creating new content types for files, I would make them inherit from Document. I don't think Office vs. non-Office really matters other than that the non-Office files won't have an integrated Document Information Panel that exposes the SharePoint metadata fields directly in the native application for that file.
(I.E. You can see a Document Information Panel for Word or Excel files opened in Word or Excel, but you won't see one in Photoshop.)
