Electronic File Formats for NASA-Funded Grantees and Cooperative Agreement Personnel

NASA-funded grantees and cooperative agreement personnel, who elect or are required by their grant or agreement to submit a final summary of research or final report to NASA, should transmit the STI to the appropriate NASA Center's grants officer and send a copy to the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI), Attn: Acquisitions, 7115 Standard Drive, Hanover, Maryland 21076-1320. 

Final Report Submittal Requirements 
NASA strongly recommends that you submit an electronic version of your final summary or report. Recommended fonts include Courier, Helvetica, and Times. We recommend that you also submit a paper copy that may be used to ensure data integrity (e.g., that the file has not been compromised and that no font substitution occurs in math, equations, and symbols, if applicable). 

The grantee or cooperative agreement organization is responsible for appropriately marking information that is restricted/limited or export-controlled. If your STI contains limited/restricted or export-controlled STI, do not electronically submit it to NASA or NASA CASI via the Internet or email unless it is encrypted in a format appropriate to NASA. For additional information, contact your grants officer or the NASA Center's STI or Technical Publication Manager. If no appropriate encryption package is available at time of submission, NASA will accept a paper copy of the STI or an electronic copy on CD-ROM. The paper copy or electronic file on CD-ROM and the CD-ROM itself must be marked with the appropriate restrictive marking. Do not add the restrictive marking to the exterior mailing envelope. 

Recommended Forms
NASA recommends that you include SF 298 Report Documentation Page (RDP) as the last page of the report file (available at www.sti.nasa.gov, Click on Publish STI or go to the NASA Electronic Forms site + View site). This helps ensure the appropriate indexing of your information.

Electronic File Submittal Guidelines
The following guidelines will help in creating acceptable files. 

Electronic File Formats and Media
NASA and its contractor-run facility, the NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI), will accept electronic files in the following formats

• Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) (preferred format) (see Converting Files to PDF)
• Postscript
• Native formats-Native refers to the source application (Word, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, Excel, Photoshop, etc.). Files in their native format must be self-contained including all graphics.
• HTML files must be self-contained; there should be no links (electronic pathways) to external documents or web sites because files can be disabled or links "broken" and the information is lost.
• TIFF 
• XML
• ASCII (text-only files)

Electronic files can be submitted via

• Disk (3.5 in., CD-ROM formatted to ISO 9660 Standards, 100 or 250 Mb Zip)
• E-mail attachment up to 5 Mb
• Internet download

If none of these methods work for you, please contact your COTR for instructions

CASI uses WinZip to uncompress files.

Organizing Electronic Files
The electronic file must contain the complete camera-ready cover-to-cover report including the SF 298 (RDP). Suggested fonts for best results are Courier, Helvetica, and Times

• Store report and/or supplements to a report as a single, cover-to-cover product; CASI WILL NOT combine multiple files to create the necessary single-file document. In the case of compilations, in addition to a single, cover-to-cover file, also provide a separate file for each individual chapter or paper in the document. This facilitates cataloging at CASI.
• Include all pages required to output or store it as a camera-ready cover-to-cover report-cover pages, front matter, text, graphics, RDP, and blank pages-to ensure proper page positioning throughout the report when it is printed.
• It is not necessary to provide an "interactive" PDF file (such as contents page numbers linking to those sections), as that utility is not needed and will not be used or retained when CASI downloads the file to their storage area for online access.

Converting Files to PDF
The preferred mode is "PDF Normal" in which the PDF is created directly from a postscript file. Postscript files generated from native formats can be converted to "PDF Normal" using Adobe Acrobat Distiller. It is recommended that native files be printed to postscript format before creating PDF files. This creates a searchable PDF file.

PDF files generated from a scanned image should be converted from the scanned image to PDF Searchable Image Exact (PDF image plus text). This creates a searchable PDF file while maintaining the integrity of the original report. Other modes of conversion that are available in conversion programs may alter the contents of the original file.

For assistance creating PDF files, additional information can be obtained from the Adobe website at www.adobe.com. Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded free + View site.