Good scientific practice requires the archiving of research data for 10 years. The readability of data may also be limited by the chosen file format. Proprietary file formats that are associated with commercial software limit or even preclude their use should the software become unavailable in the future. The choice of file format is thus important for long-term use of the data and possible reuse by others.
If possible, open and widely used file formats should be chosen. Ideally, archivability should also be directly considered. For archiving, file formats should keep the data uncompressed and unencrypted if possible.
Recommended file formats
In the context of HeFDI a recommendation (German) for file formats was compiled.
A selection from the recommendations:
| Datentyp | Empfohlene Formate |
|---|---|
| Computer-aided Design (CAD) |
AutoCAD Drawing (.dwg) Drawing Interchange Format, AutoCAD (.dxf) Extensible 3D, X3D (.x3d, .x3dv, *.x3db) |
| Rastergrafiken |
TIFF (.tif, unkomprimiert, möglichst TIFF 6.0+) • Portable Network Graphics (.png, unkomprimiert) JPEG2000 (*.jp2, verlustfreie Komprimierung) |
| Tabellen | Komma- oder Tab-begrenzte Text Files (.csv) |
| Texte |
Unformatierter Text, (.txt, Quellcode usw.) PDF-A (falls Layout relevant) |
| Ton, Audio |
WAV (*.wav) (unkomprimiert, pulse-code moduliert) bedingt geeignet MP3 (.mp3) |
| Vektorgrafiken | SVG ohne JavaScript binding (*.svg) |
| Video |
FFV1 Codec (ab Version 3) in Matroska Container (.mkv) bedingt geeignet MP4 (.mp4), Audio Video Interleave (*.avi) |