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Data Management: Data Formats

This guide describes library services and resources to support data management at UNO.

Recommended Formats

Different disciplines produce different kinds of data, and some formats are recommended for long-term storage of data.

Data Type Original Data Format Preservation Friendly Formats
(Open Standard, Uncompressed)
Text Hand-written, docx, wpd, odt, rtf, txt, html, xml, pdf xml, PDF/A, txt
Tabular Simple
(minimal metadata)		 csv, tsv, pipe-delimited, xls(x), ods, dif, xps csv

Tabular Extensive
(variable and value labels, missing data defined)

 sav (SPSS), sas7bdat or xpt (SAS), dta (STATA)  csv, txt with setup file  or associated script (r or m)
Database mdb, dbf, sql, sqlite, db, db3, xml xml, sqlite
Visual static: pdf, jpeg, tiff, png, gif, bmp,
moving: mpeg, mov, avi, mxf		 PDF/A, tiff, JPEG2000
​MPEG-4
Audio wav(e), mp3, mp2, aiff, wma, aac, dct, flac, ogg,  wave, aiff 

For more, see the UK Data Service Recommended Formats or the Recommended Formats Statement of the Library of Congress