Additional resources

Anything this workshop might not have covered can be found here!

PRONOM Drop-in

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The PRONOM team also hosts regular open drop-in sessions:

• Every two weeks on Thursday at 4:00pm (UK) / 11:00am (ET)
• The last Wednesday of every month at 7:00am (UK) / 4:00pm (AET)

Further information on dates and joining instructions can be found on the PRONOM resources GitHub repository

PRONOM statistics

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A PRONOM dashboard helping you to identify PRONOM’s gaps and understand current coverage.

• PRONOM Dashboard

Skeleton files

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To help test your signatures for collisions and identify when tools like DROID, FIDO, or Siegfried deviate from the results you expect you PRONOM signatures to provide.

• Skeleton-suite homepage
• Richard Lehane’s Builder Releases

Alternative lists of file format signatures

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• Wikipedia: List of file signatures

Useful tools

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Windows

• HxD hex Editor
• 7-zip ZIP/OLE Extractor/viewer
• Notepad++ XML/Text/File viewer

Mac

• hexfiend hex Editor
• p7zip 7zip for Mac
• bbedit XML/Text/File viewer

Linux

• hexyl hex Editor

Web based Hex

• werewolv hex Editor
• hexed.it hex Editor

Container signatures

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Container signature development is an advanced topic, for now!

Previous guides and syllabi we’ve created can be found below.

Challenge

Guide to container signature development on the OPF blog

DROID Container Signature Files: What they are and how to create them: A template and an example, or few…

Container signature file templates

Templates to get you started

What’s in the box?

A container format identification workshop held at iPRES2024.

• Abstract
• Slides

OLETools

• Python: OLETools tools for inspecting OLE2 objects.
• Richard Lehane’s comdump for extracting data and metadata from OLE2 objects.

Sample Container files

Sample ZIP and OLE files to explore

Lists of known OLE2 and Zip file formats

OLE on the Just Solve It Wiki ZIP on the Just Solve It Wiki

Give me a hint

The resources above should help get you started. If you do give container signature development a go, do let us know how it goes!

Carpentries version in progress!

We’re currently working on a carpentries version for container signature development which we hope to share short order!