Novus Examples

What Novus Examples does today

Novus Examples is a browsable catalog of sample files. You pick a format, preview what the file is, and download it — no sign-up, no upload, nothing to configure. Each file is a genuine, correctly-formed example of its format rather than a renamed placeholder, so a sample PNG really is a PNG, a sample PDF really opens as a PDF, and a sample MP4 really plays. That fidelity is the point: a test file is only useful if it behaves exactly like the real thing you are standing in for.

The library also keeps a shelf of deliberately difficult files — empty, corrupt, wrong-extension, and very large — because the most important tests are often the ugly ones. Software that works on a clean file can still fall over on a zero-byte upload or a malformed archive, and Novus Examples gives you those cases without having to manufacture them yourself.

• Browse by format across images, documents, audio, video, and archives.
• Download a genuine, correctly-formed sample of any supported format.
• Grab specialty files — empty, corrupt, wrong-extension, oversized — for error-handling tests.
• Free, no account, and downloaded directly in the browser.

The format catalog

The catalog spans the formats people most often need to test against, and it keeps the variations that actually matter — a plain photo and a transparent PNG are different tests, and so are an sRGB image and a CMYK one.

• Images: PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, SVG, TIFF, BMP, HEIC, AVIF, ICO — including transparent, grayscale, CMYK, tiny, and very large variants.
• Documents: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, TXT, CSV, JSON, XML, Markdown, RTF.
• Audio: MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG, M4A.
• Video: MP4, WebM, MOV, AVI, MKV.
• Archives & data: ZIP, TAR, GZ, RAR, 7z.
• Specialty & edge cases: zero-byte, corrupt/malformed, wrong-extension, and oversized files.

Testing a file converter

The most direct use is exercising a converter. Grab a sample in the source format you care about, run it through the tool, and check the output against what you expected — dimensions preserved, transparency intact, audio in sync, archive contents complete. Because the samples are real, a conversion that succeeds here will behave the same way on your users' files.

This pairs naturally with Novus Convert at convert.novusstreamsolutions.com, which converts and compresses files locally in the browser. Download a batch of image, document, audio, or archive samples from Novus Examples and use them to confirm a conversion pipeline end to end. The walkthrough at Test a file converter end to end with sample files covers the full loop.

Testing a background remover

Background removal has its own set of hard cases, and the right sample makes the test meaningful. A subject on a busy background stresses edge detection differently than one on a flat color; a hair- or fur-heavy portrait tests fine detail; a transparent PNG tests whether a tool preserves existing alpha; and a grayscale image checks that color assumptions do not break the cutout.

Novus Examples keeps images chosen for exactly these cases, so you can put a background remover through its paces rather than only trying the easy photo. They pair with the NSS Background Remover at bgremover.novusstreamsolutions.com, and Test a background remover with the right sample images explains which sample to reach for and why.

Edge cases and robustness

Clean files tell you a tool works; awkward files tell you it is safe. A zero-byte file, a truncated or corrupt file, a file whose extension lies about its contents, and a file far larger than expected are the inputs that expose missing validation, unhandled errors, and memory problems. These are tedious to create by hand and easy to forget, which is why Novus Examples keeps a dedicated set of them.

Reach for these when you are hardening an upload flow, a parser, or a conversion step. The reference at Sample file types explained: what each sample is for describes what each specialty file represents and the failure it is designed to surface.

Free, no account, and browser-first

Like the rest of the portfolio, Novus Examples keeps its core job free and asks for nothing. There is no sign-up, no paywall, and no upload — you are downloading files from a library, so nothing of yours is sent anywhere. Grabbing a test file should be the quickest part of your day, not a detour through a registration form.

That restraint is deliberate. The tool is meant to disappear into your workflow: open it, take the file you need, and get back to the thing you were actually testing.

How Novus Examples fits the portfolio

Novus Examples is the sixth live Novus app. NSS Background Remover handles image cutouts and editing, Novus Visualizers handles creator video, Novus PDF Studio handles PDF forms, Novus Convert handles file conversion, and Novus Learn handles source-grounded reading — and Novus Examples supplies the raw material to test tools like those. It is the utility the others quietly assume you already have.

Open examples.novusstreamsolutions.com to use the app. The current inventory is mapped at Tool maps, the first walkthrough is Getting started with Novus Examples: find and download a sample file, and the launch story is Novus Examples: free sample and dummy files for every format.