Disclosed herein is technology for enhancing a distributed file system to create file objects in requested formats. An example method may involve: storing file objects that have multiple formats; determining a base format for a group of file objects from the file objects, wherein the base format is determined in view of multiple different formats of file objects containing similar content; storing a file object corresponding to the base format on one of the nodes and discarding the group of file objects; receiving a request from a client for a file object in a first format; identifying a file object in a base format corresponding to the requested file object; creating a file object in the first format in view of the file object in the base format; and sending the created file object in the first format to the client.