On 31 Jul 2003 21:13:22 -0700, J. Tyler wrote:

> 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

jctyler_67@yahoo.com (J. Tyler) wrote in message news:...
> 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

clintposts@myrealbox.com (Clint Olson) wrote in message news:...

> jctyler_67@yahoo.com (J. Tyler) wrote in message news:...

> > 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/

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

jctyler_67@yahoo.com (J. Tyler) wrote in message news:...
> clintposts@myrealbox.com (Clint Olson) wrote in message news:...
>
> > jctyler_67@yahoo.com (J. Tyler) wrote in message news:...
>
> > > 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/
>
> 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