What image/file formats xyscan can load depends slightly on the platform. By default, xyscan supports the following formats:
| Format | Description | 
| BMP | Windows Bitmap | 
| GIF | Graphic Interchange Format (optional) | 
| JPG | Joint Photographic Experts Group | 
| JPEG | Joint Photographic Experts Group | 
| PNG | Portable Network Graphics | 
| PBM | Portable Bitmap | 
| PGM | Portable Graymap | 
| PPM | Portable Pixmap | 
| XBM | X11 Bitmap | 
| XPM | X11 Pixmap | 
| TIFF | Tagged Image File Format | 
| Portable Document Format | 
TIF and PNG files work on most platforms. Starting with version 4, xyscan also supports PDF documents on Linux and macOS.