FreeCommander Forum

The latest donation preview includes "converter in the search dialog for searching in Office and pdf files." I see a converter tab in the search dialog, but nothing indicating Office or pdf files. What does the converter tab do anyways?

You need to download and unpack xdoc2txt (it's free) http://www31.ocn.ne.jp/~h_ishida/xdoc2txt.html (page is in Japanese)
As for me, I use version xdoc2txt 1.46 http://hishida.s271.xrea.com/download/K ... txt146.zip because I tried several times version 2.00, but wasn't able to get to work it (maybe someone will give settings, working in version 2.00 ???).

Then in search dialog on converter tab you need to add new filter and make it active
Filter
*.rtf;*.docx;*.xlsx;*.pptx;*.doc;*.xls;*.ppt;*.sxw;*.sxc;*.sxi;*.sxd;*.odt;*.ods;*.odp;*.odg;*.pdf;*.eml
Program:
<path where xdoc2txt is unpacked>\xdoc2txt.exe
Parameters:
"%ConvertSourceFile%" >%ConvertTargetFile%

That's it. Now you can find text in all above mentioned file types.

Thank you!

I tried this and it doesn't seem to work very accurately. It finds files that doesn't have that particular word in it. Has anyone else experienced this? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Any help.

Thanks

Could you please give a link to such a problem file and search string, that is not present, but is found in it.

As you undestand, this is a third-party utility, and you have to contact with it's developer.

Thanks for your response. I've played around a bit more and am finding that the files listed are .mht files. Since the converter doesn't do anything with .mht files it appears this isn't the problem. I don't know why the .mht files are being listed, but I guess that's a different issue. However, I do have a question as to this search "containing text" feature. There's a checkbox next to the converter filter. I assume when the checkbox is checked then it uses this converter, and when it's not checked than the search doesn't use the converter. Is this correct? When it's not checked, the search finds one .xls file and seven .mht files (even though the search text isn't in the .mht files). When the checkbox is checked it lists the same files plus one .pdf file, which actually contains the search text. So it appears it's correctly looking in the .pdf file when it's checked. So that's a good thing.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

The only purpose of converter - it helps to search info in known formats.
If it is checked, then you could find search string (for example, "Unknown item") in .xlsx file if it is present in it. If converter is not checked - search string would not be found even if it is there, because file content could not be recognized.

But it does not affect search results - there could be found not only supported file formats, but all files, that contain such search string.

The only thing you could do - restrict search condition. For example, search only in "*.xlsx" containing text "Unknown item". Then no .mht files would be found.

Thanks Timon. I completely understand.