Recommended File Formats
Files that use open or ubiquitous formats are easier to share, preserve, and reuse. The table below provides file format recommendations for common file types. Values in bold indicate the best choice if multiple options are available.If you plan to use DataShare please prepare your data files based on these recommendations when possible.
| File Type | Recommended Formats | Acceptable Formats |
|---|---|---|
| Audio | Wave (.wav), FLAC (.flac), AIFF (.aiff, .aif); | MPEG (.mp3), FLAC, Ogg Vorbus (.ogg), |
| Database | eXistdb database files (.xml files in a hierarchy of directories) | |
| Image: Raster | uncompressed Tagged Image File Format (.tif or .tiff) | JPEG (low/no compression); BMP, PNG (.png) |
| Image: Vector | Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg) | |
| Tabular data | Comma Separated Values (.csv) or Tab Separated Values (.tsv), UTF-8 encoding preferred. | MS Excel (.xlsx 2007 or later), Open Office (.ods), structured plain text files (.txt) |
| Text: Formatted | PDF/A (.pdf), Rich Text (.rft) | PDF (.pdf), Microsoft Word (.docx), Open Office (.odt) |
| Text: Plain | Plain Text (.txt) UTF-8 encoding or plain text (.txt), ASCII encoding | |
| Structural: Markup |
SGML w/valid DTD (.smg, .sgml); XML w/valid DTD (.xml), KML (.kml), JSON (.json), Markdown (.md) | HTML (.html, .htm) |
| Video | MPEG-4 (.mp4) | AVI (.avi); QuickTime (.mov) |
| Virtual Reality | X3D (.x3d) |
File Formats to Avoid
Below is a table of file formats to avoid as they are either: 1) proprietary; 2) discontinued; or 3) difficult to preserve or reuse.
| File Types | File Formats | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
|
Audio |
Real Audio (.ra, .rm, .ram) Windows Media Audio (.wma) |
Proprietary and discontinued |
| Statistics Packages | JMP files | Proprietary |
| Adobe Creative Suite | .psd; .eps, .indd, etc. | Proprietary |
| Older Microsoft Office Suite | .doc, .docx, excl | Proprietary and defunct. |
| Images | JPEG 2000 (.jp2) | Defunct |
| Video | Windows Media Video (.wmv) | Proprietary and defunct |
| Generic | .dat | DAT files are usually contain structured text so it is better to save the data in a format that makes the structure explicit (such as .csv or .tsv). |
| Databases | Microsoft Access (.accdb), FileMaker Pro (.fm5, .fm7, .fm12, etc.) | Proprietary |
We're here to help!
Please contact us by email:
datashare@iastate.edu
For more help visit the University Library's
Data Management Plan Guide