The Rainbow Books are a collection of CD format specifications generally written and published by standards bodies including the ISO, IEC, and ECMA.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (April 2010) This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (November 2021)

• CD-DA (Digital Audio) – standardized as IEC 60908
  • CD-Text—a 1996 extension to CD-DA
  • CD-MIDI—part of the original red-book standard
  • CD+G (plus Graphics) – karaoke
    • CD+EG / CD+XG (plus Extended Graphics) – an extension of CD+G

• CD-ROM (Read-Only Memory)^[1][2] – standardized as ISO/IEC 10149^[3] in 1988 and ECMA-130^[4] in 1989
  • CD-ROM XA (eXtended Architecture) – a 1991 extension of CD-ROM

• CD-i (Interactive)

Orange is a reference to the fact that red and yellow mix to orange. This correlates with the fact that CD-R and CD-RW are capable of audio ("Red") and data ("Yellow"); although other colors (other CD standards) that do not mix are capable of being burned onto the physical medium. Orange Book also introduced the standard for multisession writing.

• CD-MO (Magneto-Optical)
• CD-R (Recordable) alias CD-WO (Write Once) alias CD-WORM (Write Once, Read Many) – partially standardized as ECMA-394
• CD-RW (ReWritable) alias CD-E (Eraseable) – partially standardized as ECMA-395

• PCD (Photo)

• CD-i Bridge - a bridge format between CD-ROM XA and the Green Book CD-i, which is the base format for Video CDs, Super Video CDs and Photo CDs.
• VCD (Video)
  • SVCD (Super Video, 1998) – a 1998 extension of VCD, standardized as IEC 62107 in 2000.

• E-CD/CD+/CD Extra (Enhanced)

Scarlet color of this book is a reference to the Red Book, which defines original CDDA.

• SACD (Super Audio)

• DDCD (Double Density)

• ISO 9660, a 1986 filesystem standard used in conjunction with CD-ROM formats.
• Orange-Book-Standard, a decision named after the Compact Disc standard, issued in 2009 by the German Federal Court of Justice on the interaction between patent law and standards