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:
| Data type | Recommended formats |
|---|---|
| Computer-aided Design (CAD) |
AutoCAD Drawing (.dwg) Drawing Interchange Format, AutoCAD (.dxf) Extensible 3D, X3D (.x3d, .x3dv, .x3db) |
| Raster graphics |
TIFF (.tif, uncompressed, preferably TIFF 6.0+) Portable Network Graphics (.png, uncompressed) JPEG2000 (.jp2, lossless compression) |
| Tables | Comma- or tab-separated text files (.csv) |
| Texts |
Unformatted text, (.txt, source code etc.) PDF-A (if layout is relevant) |
| Sound, Audio |
WAV (.wav) (uncompressed, pulse-code modulated) of limited suitability MP3 (.mp3) |
| Vector graphics | SVG without JavaScript binding (.svg) |
| Video | FFV1 Codec (from Version 3) in Matroska Container (.mkv) of limited suitability MP4 (.mp4), Audio Video Interleave (.avi) |