Format policies

Main Page > Documentation > Format-specific preservation plans

Format-specific preservation planning for Archivematica is based on analyses of the Significant properties of the format.

Normalization is one preservation strategy that can be implemented using Archivematica. Archivematica uses the National Archives of Australia's Xena (XML Electronic Normalising for Archives) software to convert certain file formats to xml-based formats on ingest. A full list of the file types Xena can normalize is available at http://xena.sourceforge.net/help.php?page=normformats.html.

However, some formats cannot be normalized by Xena. Also, it may be desirable to adopt format-specific preservation plans for certain types of files based on institutional requirements and preferences.

Follow the links below for further discussion of these issues for each file format.

Format	Also known as	File extension(s)	Normalization tool
Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform	Adobe XMP	.xmp
Adobe Illustrator drawing	Adobe AI	.ai
Advanced Stream Redirector file	Microsoft ASX Playlist	.asx
Batch file	MS-DOS batch file MS-Windows batch file	.bat
Microsoft Windows Bitmap Image file		.bmp	Xena
Cascading Stylesheet		.css	Xena
Comma Separated Values file		.csv	Xena
Command Source Code		.cmd
Document type definition		.dtd
Encapsulated PostScript		.eps
Extensible Markup Language		.xml	Xena
Extensible Stylesheet Language		.xsl
GNU zip file	GZIP file	.gz	Xena
Graphics Interchange Format	GIF	.gif	Xena
Hypertext Markup Language		.html .htm	Xena
Microsoft Icon file		.ico
JavaScript file	JavaScript programming files JScript files	.js	Xena
Java archive file		.jar	Xena
Joint Photographic Experts Group	JPEG	.jpg	Xena
Microsoft Excel Workbook	Microsoft Excel Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF)	.xls	Xena
Microsoft Office Word	MS-WORD	.doc	Xena
Moving Picture Experts Group file	MPEG	.mpg
Nikon Electronic Format	Nikon Image Format Nikon Digital SLR Camera Raw Image File	.nef
Perl script		.pl
Portable Document Format		.pdf	Xena
Portable Network Graphics		.png	Xena
Python script file		.py
Quicktime (video)	MOV QT	.mov
Real Media Metafile		.ram
Rich Text Format		.rtf	Xena
Scalable Vector Graphics		.svg	Xena
Shockwave Flash file		.swf
SQL code		.sql
Tagged Image File Format		.tiff, .tif	Xena
Windows Media Player file		.wmv
Visual Basic Scripting file	C Source Code Microsoft Active Scripting language VBScript	.vbs	Xena
ZIP file	Zip archive file	.zip	Xena