Archivist File Converter by J. Grosse

Cross‑platform digital preservation conversion tools for city and cultural archives.

This repository contains two Bash‑based converters designed for reliable, logged, repeatable format migration on:

• macOS
• Windows 11 (WSL)
• Linux

No ImageMagick is required.

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Included Tools

1. Image to TIFF+ Converter

Converts common raster image formats to archival TIFF files and embeds descriptive metadata.

Input formats:

• JPG / JPEG
• PNG
• TIFF

Output format:

• TIFF (.tiff) with XMP metadata

Converters used:

• macOS: ffmpeg
• Windows 11 WSL / Linux: ffmpeg

Metadata tool:

• exiftool

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2. Word DOC to DOCX Converter

Migrates legacy Word 97–2003 (.doc) files to Word 2007+ (.docx) format.

Converter used:

• LibreOffice (headless CLI)

Original .doc files are preserved. .docx files are migration derivatives.

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Requirements / Installation

macOS

• ffmpeg
• exiftool
• dialog
• LibreOffice (installed via .dmg)

manually install LibreOffice

bash terminal:

brew install ffmpeg exiftool dialog

Verify:

ffmpeg -version
exiftool -ver
dialog --version

LibreOffice CLI path used automatically:

/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice

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Windows 11 (WSL)

• ffmpeg
• exiftool
• dialog
• LibreOffice

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature available in Windows 11 that allows users to run a Linux environment directly within Windows 10 and 11. Installation of WSL on Windows 11 can be done easily using the wsl --install command in an elevated PowerShell or Command Prompt session, which automatically enables the necessary features and installs a default Linux distribution, typically Ubuntu.

Inside WSL (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ffmpeg exiftool dialog -y

Verify:

ffmpeg -version
exiftool -ver
dialog --version
soffice --version

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Usage

bash afconverter

Image → TIFF Conversion

Put your image files into the /input_images folder.

You will be prompted for metadata fields (optional):

• Title
• Creator / Photographer
• Description
• City / Location
• Archive / Source
• Rights
• Year

All images in input_images/ are processed.

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DOC → DOCX Conversion

Put your doc files into the /input_docs folder.

All .doc / .DOC files in input_docs/ are converted.

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Logging & Provenance

Both scripts:

• Append to log files (never overwrite)
• Add timestamps per run
• Record tool paths and conversion actions

Logs:

• logs/image_convert.log
• logs/doc_convert.log

These logs support auditability and provenance tracking.

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Archival Best Practice Notes

• Originals are never modified
• Outputs are deterministic and repeatable
• TIFF + XMP metadata is standards‑compliant
• DOCX is used as an access/migration format

These workflows align with common practices in:

• Municipal archives
• Cultural heritage institutions
• Digital preservation pipelines

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Limitations

• Image compression is default (can be extended)
• No recursive folder processing (by design)
• No checksum generation (can be added)

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Future Extensions (Optional)

Possible enhancements:

• SHA‑256 checksums
• Recursive directory support
• CSV conversion reports
• PDF/A generation
• Unified image + document pipeline
• Double‑clickable macOS launcher

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