TAR is a archive format: it concatenates files into a single stream without compression, commonly paired with gzip or bzip2 for compressed tarballs on Unix systems. ZST is a document format that stores data in the ZST format. This extracts the document from the archive so it can be opened directly. Metadata such as creation date and embedded colour profiles is preserved where the target format supports it. Converting between these two formats is common when the source application does not support ZST natively or when the target platform only accepts ZST. 1converter processes this conversion server-side using open-source tools. Files are transferred over HTTPS, converted on secure cloud servers, and automatically deleted after 24 hours.