Preferred Deposit Formats

While the ADA will accept data and supporting documentation in most formats, there are several preferred formats that the Data Owner should consider when preparing their information for upload and deposit. The tables below highlight the most commonly used formats. These are based typically on the data type in question. Adherence to the ADA preferred format not only makes the data and supporting documentation more accessible to others, by presenting the files in formats that users are familiar with, but increasingly important is the fact that the data files are then available in a format that maximises their potential to be updated and forward migrated in response to changes in technology.

The ADA may be able to offer some data format conversions, but this is purely dependent upon the availability of trained archivist staff, and the appropriate software and hardware being available. It should not be assumed that this service will be provided, and Data Owners should discuss their needs with the ADA prior to depositing. The tables below provide preferred format details for both Quantitative and Qualitative Data types.

Quantitative Data

Quantitative Data
	Statistical Packages	Spreadsheet Data	ASCII Text	Other
Preferred Formats:	SPSS (.sav), Stata (.dta)	Comma-Separated Values (CSV) (.csv)	Comma-Separated Values (CSV) (.csv), Tab-Delimited Text (.txt), Fixed Format Text	For other formats, such as database (e.g. Microsoft Access (.ACCDB), MySQL (.cnf/.sql), PostGres/PostGreSQL), please contact the ADA to discuss prior to depositing.
Other Acceptable Formats:	SAS (.sas), R (.r)	Excel (.xls/.xlsx)	Please contact the ADA to discuss prior to depositing.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative Data
	Textual Data	Digital Image Data	Digital Audio Data	Digital Video Data	Documentation
Preferred Formats:	eXtensible Markup Language (XML) (.xml) marked-up text according to an appropriate Document Type Definition (DTD) or schema, e.g. XHTML 1.0 Rich Text Format (.rtf) Plain Text Data, ASCII (.txt)	TIFF (.tiff) (uncompressed)	Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) (.flac) WAV File (.wav)	JPEG 2000 (.jpeg/.jpg) MPEG4 (.mpeg/.mpg)	Rich Text Format (.rtf) Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF/A or PDF) (.pdf) Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) (.htm) Open Document Text (.odt)
Other Acceptable Formats:	Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) (.htm) Widely-used proprietary formats e.g. Microsoft Word (.doc/.docx) Proprietary/Software-specific formats such as NUD*IST, NVivo (.nvp) and ATLAS.ti (.atlcb)	JPEG (.jpeg/.jpg) Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF/A or PDF) (.pdf) Raw Image Format (.RAW) Software-specific formats such as Photoshop (.psd) files may be acceptable, but the Data Owner should contact the ADA for advice prior to uploading the file(s)	MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (.mp3) Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) (.aif)	The Data Owner should contact the ADA for advice prior to uploading the file(s)	Plain Text Data (.txt/.asc) Widely-used proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word (.doc/.docx) or Excel (.xls/.xlsx) are acceptable but offer less long-term security eXtensible Markup Language (XML) marked-up text according to an appropriate Document Type Definition (DTD) or schema, e.g. XHTML 1.0

Frequently Asked Questions

• What do I do if my data does not exist in an electronic format?
• What do I do if my supporting documentation does not exist in an electronic format?
• What Format do my data files need to be in?
• What Format do my supporting documentation files need to be in?