HDF5 documents and links 
Introduction to HDF5 
HDF5 User’s Guide 
HDF5 Reference Manual 
HDF5 Application Developer's Guide 

HDF5 Specifications

I've got all these old HDF5 files and no software to read them!
How will I ever figure this out?

These documents provide detailed specifications for the HDF5 file format and for standard representations of several types of data objects commonly stored in HDF5.

                                         
HDF5 File Format
    Specification
    Bit-level HDF5 file format specification and description
 
DDL in BNF for HDF5 Data description languange (DDL): specification for description of HDF5 file contents in Backus-Naur Form (BNF)
 
HDF5 Image and
    Palette Specification
Specification for implementation of images and palettes in HDF5 applications
 
HDF5 Dimension
    Scale Specification
Specification for implementation of dimension scales in HDF5 applications (PDF)
 
HDF5 Table
    Specification
Specification for implementation of tables in HDF5 applications
 

HDF5 documents and links 
Introduction to HDF5 
HDF5 User’s Guide 
HDF5 Reference Manual 
HDF5 Application Developer's Guide 

The HDF Group Help Desk:
Describes HDF5 Release 1.8.20, November 2017.
  Copyright by The HDF Group
and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Last modified: 24 September 2015