How to Tell a File's Format: Five Open Source Tools

Course details

You will learn how to use five free, open-source tools to identify the format, version, and profile of document files and obtain their metadata. If you're working in library and archive technology, or if you're a student preparing for this career, the course will give you a strong start in using those tools and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. The five central sections each cover one of these tools:

file: A command line tool included in Linux and Unix for simple file identification.

DROID: A batch-oriented tool from the UK National Archives, using the PRONOM format registry.

ExifTool: A metadata extraction tool that recognizes a broad range of formats.

JHOVE: Software developed at the Harvard University Library for careful validation of certain formats. I wrote most of the code for JHOVE.

Apache Tika: Content extraction software which can identify many formats.

For each tool, there's a discussion of how to use it followed by an on-screen demonstration of installing and using it, as well as a downloadable PDF summarizing the material.

You should be comfortable with installing software on your computer. Familiarity with the Unix/Linux command line is strongly recommended. Most, but not all, of the tools described can run on Windows. All will run on a Macintosh or Linux system.