Recommended File Formats
The following file formats are recommended for maintaining and preserving digital content. They were taken from the Smithsonian’s “Recommended Preservation Formats for Electronic Records.”
Last updated
The following file formats are recommended for maintaining and preserving digital content. They were taken from the Smithsonian’s “Recommended Preservation Formats for Electronic Records.”
Last updated
Type
Primary Preservation Format (preferred)
Secondary Preservation Format (acceptable)
Text/word processing applications
PDF/A, PDF
RTF (text), TXT, XML with schema
Spreadsheet applications
or structured data
PDF/A (must capture entire workbook – macros disabled)
CSV
Tab-delimited
TXT, XML
Presentations
PDF/A, PDF
Original
Images
TIFF (uncompressed)
JPG, DNG, PNG, JP2
Graphics
TIFF
Video
Motion JPEG 2000, MOV, AVI
MPEG-4
Audio
BWF-Broadcast WAV (.wav is the extension)
WAV, AIFF, FLAC
Database Management Systems (DBMS)
Keep original
XML with schema
CAD
PDF/A, PDF/E or PDF with original file
Original