Can Windows10 text search find text inside a .XAR document?

[shiphen]

Hello

Is it possible to get Windows10 to find text inside a .XAR document?

For a several years I have mostly been using a (paid for) search utility called "X1 Search" to find text within my files. It works pretty well in general, but it doesn't seem to be able to find text within .xar documents.

What about Windows 10's built-in text search function - does that work either? (I can't get it to work for me...)

This is one issue that has stopped me using XDP much more often.

Cheers

J

[handrawn]

to recognise text within a document a search utility would need to know how it was encoded, otherwise it is just the equivalent of trying to read a foreign language you have never learned, quite possibly in a script you don't recognise, with no idea of whether to read left/right right/left top/down centre-out.....

I think the chances of windows 10 doing this are nil

I use agent ransack - it will search word [but not xara]; word formatting is not proprietary in the way xara is - interestingly sometimes you can get a 'result' because the search finds a string of characters that 'spell out' a word, but are in fact encoding something else - this often happens with jpg/png files for example when doing a wildcard search

[Acorn]

It depends how desperate you are:

• You can File > Export as WIX format. This is a Xara-internal version of a .WEB / .XAR file. The text is unencoded.
• You can File > Export as PDF. You are then at the whim of MS Search and your installed PDF filter.
• You can File > Export website. You can then search within the *.htm(l) files. This is unencoded.

In all cases, I would never use MS Windows Search.

My go-to search tool for this type of operation would be Notepad++ and Find in Files.

Acorn

[handrawn]

unencoded here means losing formatting info - right?

these methods may show you what is in the xara file but a bit fiddly for editing puropses... as you say depends how desperate

must look at notepad++ again, not used it for a quite while, windows FE can be a pain in many ways

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Shipen. Computer Active magazine did a piece called " Why you must switch to Windows enhanced search" in Issue 585 (29th July - 11th August) which you may be able to still find in the shops. It seems to suggest you can search for files and their content. Might be worth £2.30 if you can still find it

[handrawn]

I think you have been rummaging in your garage too long egg

if its not ascii based [remember ascii ?] no show...

[shiphen]

to recognise text within a document a search utility would need to know how it was encoded, otherwise it is just the equivalent of trying to read a foreign language you have never learned, quite possibly in a script you don't recognize, with no idea of whether to read left/right right/left top/down centre-out.....

I think the chances of windows 10 doing this are nil

I don't understand this. This is a REALLY important issue for Xara.


Are you saying:

1. That Microsoft are at fault for only allowing their search utilities to do text search through THEIR OWN file formats/encoding system?(e.g. msExcel, msWord, msPowerPoint, msOutlook etc). OR

2. Are you saying that the search utility companies are at fault for not using Xara's file format? OR

3. Are you saying that Xara is at fault for not publishing their file format?


The bottom line is that IMHO, Xara as no hope of ever getting out of "1st gear" and getting anything approaching wide-scale adoption until such time as it is their files are searchable. Why would you leave any content in Xara if you can't search for and find it afterwards?

J


PS If you are saying "1." them Xara (and similar companies?) should sue the hell out of Microsoft, because they are in a near monopoly position and using their dominant position as operating system developer to favouring their own applications.

[Egg Bramhill]

Shipen, try this. Create an A4 portrait page. Just create the text "Shipen". Save.
Now open the .xar file in Notepad & search for "Shipen".

[handrawn]

did you get that to work egg ? I just tried it now and no joy, as I would have expected in a xar file - what acorn suggested should work in it's own way I think, but not yet got notebook++ to try it out properly

@shipen

look it is nobody's fault

different companies have their own way of doing things - some things are standardised and some things are not - some things are kept proprietary because it makes good sense to the company, some things are 'open'

it is not for me to tell any company I am not part of how to run their business, only make suggestions, and I don't do that very often here these days because they seldom ever got anywhere [a couple did for which i am grateful]

[Acorn]

Shipen, try this. Create an A4 portrait page. Just create the text "Shipen". Save.
Now open the .xar file in Notepad & search for "Shipen".

Egg, I will stick my neck out here and suggest that does not work.
It will if you Export the file as filename.WIX as I mentioned earlier.

@handrawn - unencoded is the plain text. MS Windows and very few programs can find formatting code plus text externally. Some programs are quite limited here as well.

@shipen

1. MS offer up how third parties can create a filter for their file types. PDFs were unsearchable until someone created such a filter. Open up a PDF, DOCX, XAR file in a plain text editor and all you see is gibberish.

2. The filter to decode text may not exist for the majority of file extensions out there. Companies exist on this and have their own proprietary products to perform the decode.

3. Xara has published its file format and has delivered the WIX file extension for such a purpose. A WIX file can be edited in a Xara Desktop application.

Bottom Line. Any XAR file is searchable within its Xara Desktop application > Find and Replace (Ctrl+F). If you are after a global search for a word or phrase across a collection of XAR files then you must save the version out as a WIX format or publish and search in that or download the PDF (XDPX, XDP+). My bottom line is, if you need to search for text, you must create the right output file.

Acorn