File Editing
Functions for processing text files on file level can be found in the area "Actions > Files" on the right side of the main window of the TextConverter. With these functions, it is possible to join multiple files, to divide a file into several new files or to change the encoding and the line break type of files. In this area you will also find options for reading files with a certain encoding or a certain type of line break instead of letting the TextConverter automatically determine the encoding and the line break type when reading. With the following links you can jump directly to the respective section within these explanations:
The functions and options for editing the content of texts and text files can be found, depending on the task, in the sections about editing text as a whole, editing lines, editing CSV and editing XML.
Join Files
With the function "Actions > Files > Join Files" you can merge multiple files. Depending on your demands, the function can not only be used to only hang the content of several files together, but also to edit the content of the files. In addition, it is possible to define texts to be inserted between, before or behind the content from the files. In these texts you can of course also use all the placeholders available in the TextConverter. This makes it possible, for example, to insert the file name of the original file before the content of the respective file and thus automatically specify the source in the united new file. You can find out how all of this works in the tutorial about combining text files.
The opposite of this function is to divide a file into several new files. Also this task can be done with the TextConverter. More on this in the next section.
Split Files
With the function "Actions > Files > Split Files", you can separate the content of one existing file to several parts and save each of these parts as a new file. There are several options respectively criteria available according to which you can divide the files. For example, you can split at any text or at a regular expression, you can save all lines or a freely definable number of lines of a file as new files or you can define a specific number of characters after which a new file is started. Also a combination respectively common application of these criteria is possible.
In addition, there are some options available with which you can adapt the separation and the content of the new files to your needs. You can find out more about this in the tutorial about the splitting of text files with the TextConverter.
Reference Files
If you want to use the content of files, in whole or in part, in the actions of the TextConverter, instead of manually copying the content into your desired text fields, you can also just set a reference to the corresponding file. This opportunity is particularly useful if you want to apply certain processing steps or action lists more frequently, since the copying of the content can be automated by using a reference.
To set a reference to a file, first, you have to activate the option "Actions > Options > References" and then you can use all placeholders for references within the TextConverter. For example, the placeholder %ref:file=C:\File.txt% stands for the entire content of the file "File.txt", while the placeholder %ref:file=C:\File.txt>line=2>write=uppercase% only stands for the second line of the file, but this time written in upper case letters.
The placeholders for references can be used in all functions with text fields of the TextConverter and they can be combined with any other placeholder or any other text. You can learn more about this in the tutorial about using references in the TextConverter. In this tutorial you will also find an overview over all available reference placeholders and functional placeholders, as well as many examples of their usage and explanations of how the placeholders can be combined.
Encoding
With the settings and options under "Actions > Files > Encoding" you can determine which encoding should be used when reading and saving the files. Supported are the formats ASCII, Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1), Latin-2 (ISO 8859-2), WIN-1250 (Central European), WIN-1251 (Cyrillic), WIN-1252 (Western European), WIN-1253 (Greek), CP437, UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-16 LE, UTF-16 BE, UTF-32 LE and UTF-32 BE. In the formats UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-16 LE, UTF-16 BE, UTF-32 LE and UTF-32 BE, it can be optionally saved with or without Byte Order Mark (BOM).
If you do not activate the action "Encoding", the TextConverter tries to automatically detect the encoding of a file when reading it. The determined encoding is then used again for the storage of the file, so that the type of encoding remains unchanged if you only change the content of a file. This basic setting corresponds to the settings "Auto Detect" and "Keep".
In most cases, you should leave the option under "Read" to "Auto Detect". An exception is, for example, when reading files that were stored with an 8-bit character encoding such as one of the Windows Code Pages or with an encoding from the ISO 8859 encoding family, since these encodings can often not be clearly distinguished at the byte level. If you let the TextConverter recognize such a file automatically, the TextConverter will prefer Latin1 (ISO 8859-1) and the Windows code page of the language version of your Windows system. So, especially if you want to read files with Windows code pages that do not match your computer system, you should explicitly state the code page of the file. The preview in the TextConverter helps you to see how the bytes of a file are interpreted with your current settings.
You should only change the settings under "Save" and "Byte Order Mark" if you explicitly want to change the encoding of your files or if you want to add or remove a byte order mark to or from your files.
You can learn more about the topic "Encoding" in the overview of the formats of text files as well as in the overview of the supported formats of the TextConverter in the section "Encodings".
Line Break Type
With the settings under "Actions > Files > Line Break Type" you can determine which characters or which other criteria in your files should be interpreted as a line jump respectively as a line. As with the encoding, you can define different criteria for reading and saving and thus not only read your files with a specific type of line break, but also change the line break type of your files.
Both individual and multiple independent characters or Unicode Code Points are supported as line jump as well as lines that are defined by an arbitrary fixed number of characters per line. Typical and frequently used line break types such as CR LF (Windows) or LF (Unix, Linux, macOS) can be selected directly from the selection box, individual line break types can be freely defined via characters or via their code points.
If you do not activate the action "Line Break Type", attempts are made to automatically determine the type of line break used in a file during reading. This type of line break is then also reused for the storage, so that the line break type of the file remains unchanged when processing the file only with other actions. Similarly to the action "Encoding", this basic setting again corresponds to the options "Auto Detect" and "Keep" from the selection boxes.
In addition to the possibility of changing the line break type of files and texts, these settings are also relevant for the line actions and the CSV actions, since the CSV and line actions regard as a line, what is defined here. By defining "lines" via arbitrary including multiple characters as line end or other criteria such as character lengths, the line actions and CSV actions can thus contribute to a very flexible manner of text editing.
You can find out more about the topic "line break types" in the overview over various frequently used types of line breaks as well as in the explanations about the supported formats of the TextConverter in the section "Line Break Types". In these explanations, you will also learn how to define custom line breaks via characters or codepoints, how to determine lines with a fixed line length and how to implement line breaks at multiple different characters or codepoints.
TextEncoder
If you do not want to make any other changes to your files apart from changing the encoding or the type of line break, you can also do this task with the TextEncoder. This program is available either as an independent program or integrated in the TextConverter accessible via the menu Tools > TextEncoder.
Storage Options
At the bottom right of the main window you can find the area "Storage Options". Here you can determine in which folder, under which name and with which file extension your files are saved after processing.
If you select JPG, PNG or BMP as a file extension, your text file will be saved as an image (you can find all settings for the storage as an image in the menu "Settings > Image Export"). If you select XLSX or ODS as file extension, your text file is interpreted as CSV according to the current CSV settings and exported as a spreadsheet for an office application such as Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc or OpenOffice Calc. And if you choose one of the file extensions DOCX or XLS, your text file will be exported as a office document for an application such as Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer or OpenOffice Writer. All other file endings will store as a text file.