| Item Type | Recommended Formats |
|---|---|
| Text: formatted | PDF/A (*.pdf), rich text format (*.rtf), Open Office (*.sxw/*.odt), MS Word (*.doc/*.docx) |
| Text: plain | Plain Text (*.txt) UTF-8 encoding or plain text (*.txt) ASCII encoding |
| Audio | MPEG (*.mp3), Wave (*.wav), FLAC (*.flac), Ogg Vorbus (.ogg) |
| Musical Scores | DIGITAL: MusicXML, Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), XHTML, SGML; PAGE-BASED FORMAT: PDF-UA (ISO 14289-1-compliant), PDF-A (ISO 19005-compliant), PDF |
| Raster Image | JPEG (*.jpg), PNG (*.png), GIF (*.gif), TIFF (uncompressed) (*.tiff/*.tif), JPEG2000 (lossless) (*.jp2) |
| Vector Image | Scalable Vector Graphics (*.svg), Computer Graphic Metafile (CGM, WebCGM) (*.cgm), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) (*.eps) |
| Spreadsheet/Database | Comma Separated Values (*.csv) or Tab Separated Values (*.tsv), UTF-8 encoding preferred, SQL Data Definition Language (*sql), MS Excel (*.xls/*.xlsx), Open Office (*.ods), structured plain text files (*.txt), PDF/A (*.pdf) (must capture entire workbook – macros disabled) |
| Structural: Markup | HTML (*.html, *.htm), XML w/ valid DTD (*.xml), Markdown (*.md), SGML w/ valid DTD (*.smg, *.sgml), KML (*.kml), JSON (*.json) |
| Websites and Social Media records | WARC (*.warc), ARC (*.arc) |
| Video | MPEG-4 (*.mp4), AVI (.avi) |
| Computer Programs | Uncompiled computer program source code (*.c, *.cpp, *.java, *.js, *.jsp, *.php, *.pl, *.py, etc.), Compiled / Executable files (EXE, *.class, COM, DLL, BIN, DRV, OVL, SYS, PIF) |
| Presentations | PDF/A (*.pdf), OpenOffice (*.sxi/*.odp), MS PowerPoint (*.ppt/*.pptx) |
| Virtual Reality | X3D (*.x3d) |
Files that are .exe and other executables are discouraged. For additional information, contact hello@hcommons.org.
We've built our recommended formats list in part using the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement and the Smithsonian Recommended Formats for Electronic Records. See their lists for more information on uncommon types.