Overview
ISO/TR 22299:2018 - Document management - Digital file format recommendations for long-term storage - provides practical guidance for selecting file formats intended for long-term preservation, usability and exchange of electronic documents. The technical report helps organizations choose formats that support durability, fidelity to the original, data integrity, and interoperability across applications and platforms. It applies to office documents (text, spreadsheets, presentations), email, static web pages and multimedia components (images, video, sound). It does not apply to database formats.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Selection criteria for file formats
- Durability and presentation stability (tamper resistance, avoidance of embedded code/macros).
- Fidelity and data integrity (preserving original information, signatures, seals, timestamps).
- Interoperability - independence from specific creation applications and platforms.
- Legal and regulatory compliance.
- Availability of open, documented format specifications and industry support.
- Minimizing future migrations/conversions to reduce long-term costs.
- Selection methodology
- Verify openness and free availability of format specifications; prefer formats maintained by neutral standards bodies.
- Assess metadata support and required functionality (text, enhanced text, images, audio, video, vector/3D graphics).
- Evaluate long-term availability of readers/players and strategies to maintain access: porting, developing new software, or emulation.
- Test rendering fidelity during software or OS migrations.
- Content-specific considerations
- Recommendations cover coded text, enhanced text, vector graphics (2D/3D), technical drawings, raster images, sound and video, and office automation formats.
- Compression trade-offs: compress multimedia to reduce storage while preserving required quality and usability.
- Practical format guidance
- The report cites commonly used formats (for example, PDF and JPG as standardized examples, TIFF as widely used but historically proprietary) and stresses risk analysis when using non‑standard formats.
Applications and who uses it
- Organizations implementing digital preservation, records management, and archival programs.
- IT architects, records managers, compliance officers and legal teams responsible for long-term access, authenticity and regulatory retention.
- Developers of document management systems (DMS), digital repositories and archival workflows who need to define accepted preservation formats and migration policies.
Related standards
- Normative reference: ISO 12651-1 (Electronic document management - Vocabulary).
- Developed by ISO/TC 171 (Document management applications), Subcommittee SC 2 (Document file formats, EDMS systems and authenticity).
ISO/TR 22299:2018 is a practical, standards-based resource for organizations selecting digital file formats for long-term storage, focusing on interoperability, preservation, and reducing future migration risk.