Standardization of chromatographic signals – Part I: Towards obtaining instrument-agnostic fingerprints in gas chromatography

•Signal standardization is mandatory to extract reliable information from fingerprints.•Instrument agnostizing is proposed as a methodology for chromatogram standardization.•Retention indices similar to Kovats' proposal are used as external references for alignment.•VOCs and TGs instrument-agnostic fingerprints are obtained showing valuable results.