Whenever possible, save a copy of your data in a non-proprietary (open) format for long-term
preservation and easy-access.
| 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
(variable and value labels, missing data defined) |
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 |
From 'File Formats', Duke University Research Data Management Guide