How to strip binary data and isolate text in files?

[J. Tyler]

I'm trying to remove all the binary data from some old Micrografx
Windows Draw 4.0 (*.drw) files and leave only the plain text. That app
won't run properly in Windows XP and I sometimes need to do mass
searches for text in those old files.

Searching their folder as-is gives spotty results because the binary
data must be blocking something. When I open them individually in
Notepad I CAN see all the text but it's too time consuming to search
file-by-file in 100+ files.

Is there a downloadable app that will batch-process many files and
strip out everything but the readable text, then save them? I haven't
had any luck finding one. Most of these *.drw files are around 2kb if
that matters.

JT

 

[Sanjay Goel]

I'm trying to remove all the binary data from some old Micrografx
Windows Draw 4.0 (*.drw) files and leave only the plain text. That app
won't run properly in Windows XP and I sometimes need to do mass
searches for text in those old files.

Searching their folder as-is gives spotty results because the binary
data must be blocking something. When I open them individually in
Notepad I CAN see all the text but it's too time consuming to search
file-by-file in 100+ files.

Is there a downloadable app that will batch-process many files and
strip out everything but the readable text, then save them? I haven't
had any luck finding one. Most of these *.drw files are around 2kb if
that matters.

JT

There is GNU binutils http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/
In this, there is strings which lists printable strings for file.
This package surely works with cygwin on windows. I am not sure whether it
is available natively for windows too.
cygwin installation is at http://www.cygwin.com
Sanjay

 

[Clint Olson]

I'm trying to remove all the binary data from some old Micrografx
Windows Draw 4.0 (*.drw) files and leave only the plain text. That app
won't run properly in Windows XP and I sometimes need to do mass
searches for text in those old files.

Searching their folder as-is gives spotty results because the binary
data must be blocking something. When I open them individually in
Notepad I CAN see all the text but it's too time consuming to search
file-by-file in 100+ files.

Is there a downloadable app that will batch-process many files and
strip out everything but the readable text, then save them? I haven't
had any luck finding one. Most of these *.drw files are around 2kb if
that matters.

JT

Hi,
Well, I don't have anything for batch processing, but for extracting
text from files, you can use Peek text extraction tool. You can get
it at http://pad.olsonnetwork.com/downloads/

Hope this helps!

Clint Olson
co-n-co at mochamail dot com

 

[J. Tyler]

Hi,

Maybe "TextExtract 2.2.0" can help you,

http://www.ultima-thule.co.uk/

Thanks. I found the input dialog buggy (when selecting more than one
file) but it does find the text and it's customizable. The output
skews the original text formatting but some fine tuning might fix
that.

JT

 

[J. Tyler]

(e-mail address removed) (J. Tyler) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

Hi,
Well, I don't have anything for batch processing, but for extracting
text from files, you can use Peek text extraction tool. You can get
it at http://pad.olsonnetwork.com/downloads/

FWIW, using a combination of "Simple File Joiner"
(www.peretek.com/sfj.php) and the above app ("Peek 1.1") I was able to
merge all those files into one, insert concatenation dividers and
extract the plain text. So I now have one large file with all the
binary junk removed.

JT

 

[Clint Olson]

FWIW, using a combination of "Simple File Joiner"
(www.peretek.com/sfj.php) and the above app ("Peek 1.1") I was able to
merge all those files into one, insert concatenation dividers and
extract the plain text. So I now have one large file with all the
binary junk removed.

JT

Great! I'm glad it worked out for you.

Clint