What are the file formats recommended by TERN

The following table contains file formats recommended by TERN for data preservation, publication and reuse. The list was developed based on the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement 2020-2021.

If you are unsure about the suitable data file format, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at esupport@tern.org.au for clarification.

Data types	Recommended Formats
Still images (e.g., bio-imaging) Note: we accept camera raw image file, which then will be converted into the recommended format for publication).	JPEG TIFF PNG
Audio works (e.g., bioacoustics)	Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) Wav
Geospatial vector	ESRI Shapefile GML
Geospatial raster (e.g., remote sensing gridded data products; soil and landscape grid)	Geo-referenced TIFF Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) NOTE: Make sure the Protocol for Data Services is specified and correct: For data hosted on tern.data.org.au, the protocol is usually HTTP. For data hosted on Geoserver (i.e., uses WMS, WCS, etc.) copy the title and layer name from the Geoserver.
Sensor time series (e.g., ecology plot-based survey and inventory data, flux)	Comma-separated values (CSV) Tab-delimited file NetCDF (for multidimensional array)
Textual works	PDF/UA, PDF/A or PDF OpenDocument Text Plain text (.txt). NOTE: All Word documents (.docx) need to be converted to a pdf format before submitting