File Creation, Rendering and Formats Euan Cochrane and Dirk von Suchodoletz

1. File Creation, Rendering
and Formats
Euan Cochrane, Archives New Zealand
&
Dirk von Suchodoletz, University of Freiburg
Future Perfect 2012
26 March 2012
Wellington, New Zealand

2. Contents
Euan
•Files, formats and their relationships to creating applications
•Files, formats and their relationships to rendering applications
Dirk
•Maintaining the ability to use older rendering applications
Euan
•Context and conclusions

3. Digital Preservation
• What is digital preservation?
Maintaining the full information content of digital objects
[across time]
Maintaining the ability to render digital objects [across time]
“The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of
authenticated content over time”
• What is a file format?
“[pre-defined/particular] way that information is encoded for
storage in a computer file”

4. File Creation and Formats
• In 2007 Over 90% of HTML documents did not conform
to standards
• Microsoft Office 2007
(and possibly 2010) create
ODS files differently to most
open source office suites.
• Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 create Microsoft Office
97-2003 formatted files differently to Microsoft Office
97-2003

5. Format Standards are Often
Ambiguous or not Available
• The JPEG standard specifies an end of image
marker but not an end of file marker –
Different apps write them differently
• LibreOffice 3.5 (14 February 2012) now
“supports” Visio file import. This support
is based on reverse engineering as the
format standard is not publically
available. It is not complete

6. “Rendering Matters” Research
• Compared the rendering of ~100 files on old software
running on old hardware (the “control”) to:
1. LibreOffice version 3.3.0
2. Microsoft Office 2007
3. Word Perfect Office X5
4. Control Software running on emulated hardware

16. Summary Research Results
• [The choice of] Rendering [Environment] Matters
• MS-Office 2007 was a better rendering tool for the old
files than either LibreOffice or WordPerfect Office
• The use of particular attributes/features in office files is
inconsistent but most are used at least once.
• At least one “odd”/rare attribute/feature is included in
most office files

17. Original Environments (OE)

Original creating application best candidate to render
documents properly

Proprietary format knowledge embedded in the
application

One environment renders all objects of a certain type

Keeping original software (and hardware) environments
has impact on preservation and access workflows

18. Components of Access through OE

Emulators for different computer architectures

Software archive of all required applica-tions, operating
systems, additional components like fonts, codecs

Workflows on object ingest

Access systems for end users

19. Emulators

Wide range available for all relevant
computer architectures

Many Open Source

Not yet DP aware – long term
availability to be secured

DP community should seek more
influence

20. Software Archive

Preserve the relevant software components and
operational knowledge

21. Necessary Workflows

Freiburg digital preservation group leads the state-
sponsored two years bwFLA project

BwFLA project providing access to complex, interactive
digital objects

Provide extended ingest workflows with feedback loop

22. Extended Ingest Workflow

Make use of donator's expertise to collect complete
information and components

Extend software archive if necessary

Add necessary technical metadata

Record knowledge on object handling

Let the donor check and sign-off the rendering results

23. Access Workflows

Provide a reading room system or extension
– Pre-configure emulator to the OE required by the
object
– Prepare the inclusion of the object into the original
environment
– Automate the startup of the OSE
– Provide the user information and hints on how to
interact with the OE & automate parts of this
– (Dis)allow to a certain degree to save results from
the original environments or capture certain states
(e.g. using screenshots)

24. Access System

Many components already exist, develo-ped by past DP
projects

Next step: Make them a usable “product”

25. Reading Room Access System

Make emulation accessible to standard users like in
memory institutions

Robust platform, extension to standard reading room
systems

Unified access to a wide range of different emulators +
preconfigured environments

26. Context and Conclusions
• Making decisions about preservation strategies
• When to Normalise?
• Variation in format implementation doesn’t matter if you
maintain a compatible rendering environment
• Variation in rendering across environments doesn’t matter if
you maintain the “right” rendering environment
• There are practical options for maintaining rendering
environments

27. Thank you