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 |
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