1. A method of communicating a data file over an aircraft communications addressing and reporting system (ACARS), the method comprising: determining a type of data represented in the data file; analyzing data in the data file wherein the data has a data type of at least one of HTML, XML, Portable Network Graphics, or Comma Separated Value; selecting an encoding scheme from a plurality of encoding schemes based upon the type of data and the data in the data file; encoding one or more messages to represent the data file according to the selected encoding scheme, wherein the one or more messages comply with a protocol defined by ARINC 618 and the encoding losslessly compresses the data into the one or more messages; tagging the one or more messages to indicate the selected encoding scheme; and transmitting the one or more messages over the character-oriented data link.