FileMerlin

Text is one of the basic and commonly used input method when you deal with computers. Whether you read or write it, you can find it anywhere. These are stored under various formats, each with multiple features and security settings. Not all are compatible with your preferred editor, but with the help of applications like FileMerlin you can easily convert them between multiple text file types.

With the main focus on providing flexibility, you're given a neat advantage during the setup process, which delivers all the means of integrating its functions in other applications, a suitable feature for developers.

Since this feature is optional and has no impact on functionality, you sooner or later get to meet the compact and intuitive interface. Several fields let you provide source and destination. Although drag and drop is not supported as an input method, the open dialog lets you select one or more documents, which can be of different formats.

It does a pretty good job at file management, with DOC, SAM, TXT, WPD, WPS, WPT and WRI being on the import list, while export also benefits from PDF, RTF, XML and HTML. You can only export to one type of file per operation, and there's no feature to fuse all documents together.

These are the major steps as far as the overall process of converting is concerned. However, going under the hood unveils an abundance of configurable options that also target character and application formatting or customization.

A tab structured window lets you manage settings individually for web colors, HTML, fields, MS Word, WordPerfect, PowerPoint, Text attributes, margins, text, summary and a few misc options. Amongst others, you can handle both text visual formatting options, as well as whether or not to keep images, or date and time related settings. Multiple profiles can be saved and this is a neat advantage, given the amount of different options at your disposal.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that FileMerlin is a small, but powerful text conversion application with which you don't need to install different editors, but simply change the file format. The process itself only takes a little while, with configurations requiring more effort, but the result lives up to expectations.