What are suggested file formats?

Suggested file formats for Data Collections

To ensure your dataset is accessible in the long term and usable to the largest possible number of researchers, we encourage you to submit your data in the formats suggested below. Here you can find our list of preferred and acceptable formats for each different type of data for download.

Type Preferred format(s) Acceptable format(s)
Text documents Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf) OpenDocument Text (.odt), Microsoft Word (.docx), Rich Text Format (.rtf)
Plain text Unicode (.txt) Non-Unicode (.txt)
Statistical data Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS/SPSS Portable) (.por, .sav), STATA (.dta), Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) (.xml), data (.csv), setup (.txt) Statistical Analysis System (SAS) (.7bdat; .sd2; .tpt)R(*)
Spreadsheets OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) (.ods), Comma-separated Values (CSV) (.csv) Microsoft Excel (.xlsx), Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf), Office Open XML (OOXML) (.docx, .docm)
Databases Structured Query Language (SQL) (.sql), Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases (SIARD) (.siard), Database tables (.csv) Microsoft Access (.mdb, .accdb), (v. 2000 or later), dBase (.dbf) (v. 7 or later), Hierarchical Data Format 5 (HDF5) (.hdf5, .he5, .h5)
Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) Rotterdam Exchange Format Initiative (REFI-QDA) (.qdpx) Application’s export formats (ATLAS.TI copy bundle, NVIVO export project; ...), Qualitative Data Exchange Format (QuDEX)
Images Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) (.jpg, .jpeg), JPEG 2000 (.jp2), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) (.tif, .tiff), Portable Network Graphics (PNG) (.png),  Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) (.svg) Adobe Illustrator (.ai), Encapsulated Postscript Vector graphics (Adobe Illustrator) (EPS) (.eps)
Images (geo reference) GeoTagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) (.tif, .tiff) Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), World File (.tfw & .tif)
Audio Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE/WAV), Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) (.wav), Free Flossless Audio Codec (FLAC) (.flac)
Video Moving Pictures Expert Group-2 (MPEG-2) (.mpg, .mpeg, ...), Moving Pictures Expert Group-4 (MPEG-4 H.264) (.mp4) Lossless Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) (.avi), QuickTime (.mov)
Markup language Extensible Markup Language (XML) (.xml), HyperText Markup Language (HTML) (.html, .xhtml); If needed: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) (.css), Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) (.xslt), JavaScript (.js), Elementary Stream (.es) Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) (.sgml)
Geographical Information (GIS) Geography Markup Language (GML) (.gml), MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF/MID) (.mif/.mid) Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Shapefiles (.shp & related files), MapInfo (.tab & related files), Keyhole Markup Language (KML) (.kml)

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