n. (also normalisation)the process of converting a digital object into a persistent file formatThomas and Martin 2006, 45Another approach involves the transformation of objects into standard file formats specified by the repository; this approach is sometimes called ‘normalisation’.McAlister 2007, 22–23Digital programs may also rely on the use of file formats that are standards. It is thought that widely adopted standards-compliant file formats are more likely to be viable over the long term. The sheer mass of users will push the market to address such a file format in new technologies. Repositories may choose to rely on a handful of standard file formats and convert all other formats to these preferred standard ones. This strategy is known as normalization.Mumma, Dingwall, and Bigelow 2011, 105A prime example of this is the format normalization process. The preferred preservation format for word processing documents is PDF.Thomas 2015, 10, fn. 24Loosely defined, normalization is the process of taking a type of file format and either ensuring its compliance with format standards or transforming it to a pre-established standardized format.Pendergrass et al. 2019, 190However, as long as open source software utilities for conducting such file format migrations remain available on modern or emulated platforms and such conversions have been tested for their ability to retain significant properties of files, practitioners should question the necessity of format normalization at the time of ingest for all but the highest-risk formats in their care.Rimkus et al. 2020, 404In addition to these general fields, digital content format entries also contain sections focused on file-rendering profiles and normalization paths . . . File-rendering profiles detail the software and operating systems used to open files, and normalization paths specify information about target file formats to which designated formats may be migrated should the need arise, with information about recommended software for conversion.Kopin, Hutchinson, and Truitt 2025, 44Although the digital archivist had been trained in previous professional archival contexts to request precustodial interventions from the donor such as deduplication, file renaming, and file format migration/normalization, it was not practical to request this from donors struggling with simply transferring files from one computer to another.transforming data to a canonical formPerepechko et al. 2005, 70Inconsistencies in data were corrected using semi-automated normalization procedures to create a unified data set.Mas, Maurel, and Alberts 2011, 42The identification of these facets and their related values had also required the normalization of the vocabulary associated to each facet.Anderson 2021, 125This text normalization made the records machine readable and computable.Anderson 2021, 128During the course of this initial testing, it became apparent that the data in the texts required additional normalization. The programmer thus removed articles, conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions, and other words unrelated to cybernetics to reduce noise.
