Preview function in a digital data preservation system

A digital preservation system for accepting a digital data record as input, for providing a preview of the digital data record on a display screen, for writing the data record in human-readable form onto a preservation-quality medium, for storage of the medium, and for retrieval of the data record from the medium (. The digital preservation system preserves a data record in human-readable form, along with an associated metadata record, allowing the human-readable preserved data record to be readable in the distant future, independent of specific reading hardware. A preview function allows an operator to specify storage and retrieval characteristics for the data record.