Recommended formats
This table contains guidance on file formats recommended and accepted for deposit by the UK Data Service.
Formats are selected with regard to their suitability for data sharing and reuse, and for supporting long-term preservation.
| Type of data | Preferred deposit formats | Other acceptable deposit formats |
|---|---|---|
| Quantitative tabular data with extensive metadata A dataset with variable labels, code labels, and defined missing values, in addition to the matrix of data |
Proprietary formats of statistical packages e.g. SPSS (.sav), Stata (.dta), .sas7bdat Delimited text and command ('setup') file (SPSS, Stata, SAS, etc.) containing metadata information Dome structured text or mark-up file containing metadata information, e.g. DDI XML file |
SPSS portable format (.por) MS Access (.mdb/.accdb) |
| Quantitative tabular data with minimal metadata A matrix of data with or without column headings or variable names, but no other metadata or labelling |
Comma-separated values (CSV) file (.csv) Tab-delimited file (.tab) Including delimited text of given character set with SQL data definition statements where appropriate |
Delimited text of given character set - only characters not present in the data may be used as delimiters (.txt) Widely-used formats, e.g. MS Excel (.xls/.xlsx), MS Access (.mdb/.accdb), and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) |
| Geospatial data Vector and raster data |
ESRI Shapefile (essential - .shp, .shx, .dbf, optional - .prj, .sbx, .sbn) Geo-referenced TIFF (.tif, .tfw) CAD data (.dwg) Tabular GIS attribute data |
ESRI Geodatabase format (.mdb) MapInfo Interchange Format (.mif) for vector data Keyhole Mark-up Language (KML) (.kml) Adobe Illustrator (.ai), CAD data (.dxf or .svg) Binary formats of GIS and CAD packages |
| Qualitative data Textual |
eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) text according to an appropriate Document Type Definition (DTD) or schema (.xml) Rich Text Format (.rtf) Plain text data, ASCII (.txt) |
Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) (.html) Widely-used proprietary formats, e.g. MS Word (.doc/.docx Some proprietary/software-specific formats, e.g. NUD*IST, NVivo and ATLAS.ti |
| Digital image data | TIFF version 6 uncompressed (.tif) Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) (.dcm, .dcm30) - for CT/MRI data |
JPEG (.jpeg, .jpg) but only if created in this format TIFF (other versions) (.tif, .tiff) Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF/A, PDF) (.pdf) Standard applicable RAW image format (.raw) Photoshop files (.psd) BMP (.bmp) but only if created in this format PNG (.png) but only if created in this format |
| Digital audio data | Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) (.flac) | MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (.mp3) but only if created in this format Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) (.aif) Waveform Audio Format (WAV) (.wav) |
| Digital video data | MPEG-4 (.mp4) OGG video (.ogv, .ogg) Motion JPEG 2000 (.mj2) |
MOV (.mov) Windows Media Video (WMV) (.wmv) WebM (.webm) |
| Documentation and scripts | Rich Text Format (.rtf) PDF/A or PDF (.pdf) HTML (.htm) OpenDocument Text (.odt) R Markdown files (.rmd) (with HTML version as well) |
Plain text (.txt) Widely-used proprietary formats, e.g. MS Word (.doc/.docx) or MS Excel (.xls/.xlsx) XML marked-up text (.xml) according to an appropriate DTD or schema, e.g. XHMTL 1.0 |
This information is managed by the UK Data Archive based on the controlled document: Study directories, formats & extensions [CD199].
We welcome queries from researchers about appropriate file formats for working and preservation, particularly early in the research process.
If you are unsure of the suitability of your file formats for the data you want to deposit with the UK Data Service, please get in touch.
