Identifing the software application that a file was created in

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Title
Identifing the software application that a file was created in
Detailed description We want to be able to identify which application a file was created in (and possibly the version). This could be useful because different applications interpret different standards in different ways. A PDF/A file created in Adobe Pro will be different to a PDF/A created in a free piece of software you can download on-line. It would be useful for us to store this information as part of the technical metadata about an original file. We have previously asked depositors to supply this information to us but they do not always oblige (and when they do they sometimes do not know!)

Useful also to know if a raster image has been created within a digital camera or is a scanned image.
Issue champion Jenny Mitcham
Other interested parties
Any other parties who are also interested in applying Issue Solutions to their Datasets
Possible Solution approaches There may be some existing file identification tools that can do some of this for us. Worth checking out NLNZ metadata extraction tool and JHOVE2.

Unlikely to be an easy solution!

Only certain files will store this information as part of the file - for other files we will never know what they were created in.
Context This is metadata that we currently ask our depositors for but don't collection systematically or store anywhere in our database. Our database structure is being amended to store this info but we would like a good way of collecting it.
Lessons Learned Notes on Lessons Learned from tackling this Issue that might be useful to inform digital preservation best practice
Datasets Archaeology Data Service archive
Solutions Reference to the appropriate Solution page(s), by hyperlink
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issue issue Delete
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spruce spruce Delete
spruce_glasgow spruce_glasgow Delete
unknown_characteristics unknown_characteristics Delete
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