Deep Blue Supported Formats

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Format Support Policy

Format Support Levels

What To Do If Your Format Isn't Listed

FORMAT SUPPORT POLICY

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Highest Level (Level 1): The highest level of preservation support. We will make our best effort to maintain all the content, structure and functionality of the work you deposit by taking appropriate preservation actions over time.
Limited (Level 2): Limited preservation support. We will preserve the content of the deposit, but its appearance and functionality may not be preservable over time.
As-is (Level 3):We preserve your deposit "as-is". This is commonly called bit-level preservation, where the work is preserved exactly as you deposited it in Deep Blue.

FORMAT SUPPORT LEVELS

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Deep Blue Registered Formats

Registered Formats and Support Levels

This list of formats and support levels will be regularly reviewed and update based on our growing experience with digital preservation and the emergence of new formats and standards.

Last updated April 23, 2007

TEXT AND PAGE DESCRIPTION FORMATS (Best Practices For Creating Quality PDFs)
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
PDF/A	.pdf	application/pdf	Level 1	Best Practices Files not created per the "Best Practices" receive Level 2 support, and may be migrated to PDF/A
Plain Text UTF-8 (Unicode)	.txt	text/plain; charset=UTF-8	Level 1
Plain Text ANSI X3.4/ECMA-6/US-ASCII (7-bit)	.txt	text/plain; charset=US-ASCII	Level 1
SGML	.sgm, .sgml	application/sgml	Level 1	Requires that DTD is deposited with SGML file and that SGML file parses against it
XML	.xml	text/xml	Level 1 / Level 2	Level 1 requires that DTD/schema is deposited with XML file and that XML file parses against it; Level 2 assumes no DTD/schema but that XML file is well-formed
HTML	.html, .htm	text/html	Level 2	Requires HTML 4.0 or 4.01 validated markup and CSS files(s), if referenced, be deposited with document
LaTeX	.latex	application/x-latex	Level 2 / Level 3	Level 2 requires that referenced style files and/or embedded items be deposited with document
Postscript	.ps	application/ps	Level 2
Rich Text	.rtf	text/richtext	Level 2
TeX	.tex	application/x-tex	Level 2 / Level 3	Level 2 requires that referenced style files and/or embedded items be deposited with document
Plain Text ISO 8859-x (8-bit)	.txt	text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-x	Level 2
Plain Text; all other encodings (including, but not limited to ISO 646 national variants)	.txt	text/plain	Level 3

COMMON DESKTOP SOFTWARE FORMATS (Best Practices)
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
Microsoft Word	.doc	application/msword	Level 2	Requires that macros be disabled
Microsoft PowerPoint	.ppt	application/ vnd.ms-powerpoint	Level 2	Requires that macros, animation and other effects be disabled
Microsoft Excel	.xls	application/vnd.ms-excel	Level 2	Requires that macros be disabled. (See also Best Practices for Datasets)

IMAGE FILE FORMATS (Best Practices)
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
JPEG	.jpg	image/jpeg	Level 1
TIFF	.tiff	image/tiff	Level 1
JPEG 2000			Level 2	Level 1 support expected as more tools become available
PNG	.png	image/png	Level 2
BMP	.bmp	image/x-ms-bmp	Level 3
GIF	.gif	image/gif	Level 3
Photo CD	.pcd	image/x-photo-cd	Level 3
Photoshop	.psd	application/x-photoshop	Level 3

AUDIO (Best Practices)
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
AIFF	.aif, .aiff	audio/aiff, +	Level 1
Wave	.wav	audio/x-wav or audio/wav	Level 1
Audio/Basic	.au, .snd	audio/basic	Level 2
MPEG audio	.mp3	audio/mpeg, audio/mp3	Level 2
AAC_M4A	m4a, .mp4	audio/m4a, audio/mp4	Level 2
Real Audio	.ra, .rm, .ram	audio/vnd.rn-realaudio	Level 3
Windows Media Audio	.wma	audio/x-ms-wma	Level 3

VIDEO
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
AVI	.avi	video/avi, video/msvideo, video/x-msvideo +	Level 2
Quicktime	.mov	video/quicktime, video/x-quicktime	Level 2
MPEG-1 MPEG-2	.mp1 .mp2	video/mpeg video/mpeg2	Level 2	Many variants possible; preservation level not yet established
MPEG-4	.mp4	video/mp4	Level 2	Many variants possible; preservation level not yet established
Windows Media Video	.wmv	video/x-ms-wmv	Level 3

OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS
Format	File Extension	Mime Type	Support Level	Qualifying Factors/Notes
ZIP/tar	.zip, .gz, tar.gz	application/zip; application/x-gzip	Level 1; see "Qualifying Factors/Notes"	ZIP or tar files are only as good as their contents; all best practices above still apply. (See also Best practices for producing ZIP and tar files)

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR FORMAT ISN'T LISTED

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Please contact your Deep Blue Administrator if you have questions about a particular format.