--- title: Downloads and Sharing description: What visitors can download for each format, how web-quality derivatives work, and how to restrict downloads. section: guides order: 6 updated: 2026-07-16 verified: 2026-07-16 related: [reference/supported-file-formats, guides/collections-and-permissions, guides/transcription-and-ocr, guides/public-discovery] features: [format-downloads, document-rendering, georeferenced-maps] --- # Downloads and Sharing You'll learn what the download page offers for each format, which options are generated on demand, and how to limit downloading when rights require it. Every artifact has a **download page** (the download button on the artifact view), with options that match the format of the file. Masters are never modified — everything below is generated *from* the master. ## Images The image download flow offers: - **Size presets** — from thumbnail to full resolution, plus exact custom dimensions. - **Social crops** — pre-framed crops for common social formats, using smart cropping that keeps the subject in frame. - **Format and quality** — JPEG/PNG/WebP conversion with a quality control. - **Embedded metadata** — title, credit, and rights can be written into the file's EXIF/IPTC/XMP so attribution travels with the image. ### Georeferenced maps When an image has an active georeference (see [Map view](/docs/en-US/guides/public-discovery#viewing-a-georeferenced-map)), its download page adds **Download georeference annotation** — the underlying IIIF Georeference Annotation as JSON, describing how the image's pixels align to real-world coordinates. This follows the same visibility and download rules as the rest of the artifact: it's offered wherever the image itself is downloadable. ## Audio - **Original** — the preservation master (WAV, FLAC, etc.). - **MP3** — 192 or 320 kbps versions, generated on first request and cached for everyone after that. Any viewer with access can request one; it takes about as long as the recording is long, and the page shows "Preparing…" until it's ready. ## Video - **Original** — the master file. - **Web quality (720p)** — an MP4 that plays anywhere, generated automatically when the video is first ingested. This is also what the in-page player streams, so old formats like AVI or ProRes play in the browser even though the master wouldn't. - **1080p** — generated on request by institution members (it's a heavier job); once cached, everyone with access can download it. - **Audio only (MP3)** — extract just the soundtrack, handy for interview recordings shot on video. ## Documents - **Original** — the source file exactly as imported (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or OpenDocument). - **Rendered PDF** — for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OpenDocument files, the PDF that Preservated generates for the page viewer is offered as its own download. Native PDFs don't have this (they *are* the PDF). - **Page images** — individual pages as images, or all pages as a ZIP (for scanned documents). - **Text** — the extracted or OCR text. See [Transcription and OCR](/docs/en-US/guides/transcription-and-ocr). ## Transcripts Recordings with transcripts offer **TXT** (plain reading copy), **SRT**, and **VTT** (subtitle formats with timings) exports. When a transcript identifies speakers, all three formats include the speaker names — the display names your curators set, not raw diarization tags like `Speaker_00` (see [Transcription and OCR](/docs/en-US/guides/transcription-and-ocr)). ## Set your institution's original-download policy **Admin → Settings → Downloads & Rights** sets the default posture for original full-resolution files across your whole institution: - **Allow unless under copyright** — originals are downloadable unless an item has a positive under-copyright determination. Items whose copyright status is *unknown* are offered, on the theory that most of a local archive is fine to share. - **Restricted** (the default) — items with *unknown* copyright status also withhold the original. This is the cautious posture: only public-domain and openly licensed items offer originals. - **Staff only** — originals are never offered to visitors, regardless of copyright status or license. Members with the editor role and above still see them. Under every policy, web-size previews stay downloadable, and your staff always see the original (on an admin-styled row). Changing the policy recomputes the cached download permissions for all artifacts, which the save confirmation reports. The policy is enforced by the download endpoints themselves, not just hidden from the page — a shared link to a withheld original returns "not permitted" for visitors. ## Restrict downloads for an artifact When rights don't permit redistribution of one item, enable **Disable public download** on the artifact. For everyone except your editors, this blocks the original file *and* the media derivatives (web MP4s, MP3s, page images) — it stacks on top of the institution policy above. Two things it deliberately does **not** do: - It doesn't hide the artifact — visitors still see it in the viewer. To hide it entirely, use visibility instead ([Collections and Visibility](/docs/en-US/guides/collections-and-permissions)). - It doesn't block transcript/text exports — that text is already readable on the page. :::note Copyright status gates downloads automatically: artifacts computed as under copyright don't offer original-resolution downloads to the public under any policy. See the rights section of [Working with Artifacts](/docs/en-US/guides/working-with-artifacts). ::: ## Public vs. restricted delivery Derivatives of public artifacts are served directly from the CDN for speed. Derivatives of members- or admin-only artifacts are stored privately and streamed through an access-checked endpoint — the same permission rules as the artifact itself. If you change an artifact's visibility, its derivatives move accordingly.