Before individual files are described, a general introduction is given. The next section provides an overview to the different data subsystems, like the Observation Data Subsystem (ODS), the Pipeline Processing Subsystem (PPS), which uses some specific SAS tasks and the XMM-Newton Science Archive. Sect. 3 deals with the specification of the file formats.
The files are described in the order in which they are used in a systematic reduction, starting with the uncalibrated data in Sect. 4, continuing with the files needed to calibrate these data in Sect. 5, and then describing the calibrated events files in Sect. 6. In addition, the products from the Pipeline Processing Subsystem (PPS) are described in Sect. 8. Each of these sections begins with an outline of the naming convention which allows identification of each file encountered in the respective category.
The last three sections contain an acronym list and glossary, due acknowledgements, and a list of reference documents, respectively.
In Appendix A, the reference time system is explained.