How to change a file extension in Windows - current methods

This instruction details several ways to change the extension of a file or group of files in Windows 10, 8.1 and Windows 7, as well as some nuances that a novice user may not be aware of.

Among other things, in the article you will find information about changing the extension of audio and video files (and why everything is not so simple with them), as well as how to turn .txt text files into .bat or .reg or files without an extension (for hosts ) when editing in notepad is also a popular question within this topic.

• Change the file extension in Explorer or on the desktop
• How to change the extension of a file or group of files on the command line
• Changes in video, audio, image file extensions
• Notepad, .bat, .reg and hosts files
• Video instruction

Extension not showing

For security reasons, the OS disables the ability to change the format by default. After all, if you accidentally edit the extension by specifying the wrong one, the element will become inoperative. Therefore, before proceeding with the adjustment, you need to activate the visibility of file “endings”.

This is done simply:

• Open an arbitrary folder on a computer with Windows 10 installed;
• At the top, go to the “View” tab;
• Click on the “Show or hide” button and in the drop-down menu activate the “File name extensions” option:

There is a second method, which is more universal, suitable not only for the “top ten”, but also for earlier versions of Windows.

• We go to the control panel in any known way. Select the small icons view mode and open “Explorer Options” (folders).

• Next, go to the “View” tab, scroll to the very bottom of the list of options and uncheck the “Hide extensions...” option:

We've sorted out the first part of the instructions, let's move on to the second.

Changing the file extension

There are situations when it is necessary to change the file format. Not all extensions can be changed without losing the contents of the . But, for example, pictures saved in .jpg can be easily converted to .png or .tif.

Conversion of the simplest formats can be done by renaming the file; for more complex conversions, it is worth using online converters or special programs that produce results without loss of quality.

By renaming the file

The above instructions allowed us to show the file extension at the end of its name. By right-clicking on the file to be changed, select the “Rename” function. You can leave the name the same, but erase everything after the dot and write a new format.

The new extension must be entered after the period that separates it from the file name

For example, if the file was called “Crocodile.jpg”, then the result should be “Crocodile.png”.

Via command line (several files at once)

If you need to change the extension of a large number of files, you can follow the steps below to avoid working with each element in turn:

1. Place all files to be changed in one folder. While there, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, right-click on an empty space and select the “Open PowerShell window here” function.

   
   Select the “Open PowerShell window here” method

2. Run the query ren *.X *.Y, where X is the original file format and Y is the format that will be assigned to them. For example, to convert .jpg files to .png, enter the command ren *.jpg *.png.

   
   The ren command changes the extensions of all jpg files located in the current folder to png

Using conversion

Conversion is a conversion of bytes, that is, a “smart” process of changing the format. Using conversion, you will not lose the information stored in the file. At the moment, quite a lot of online resources have been created that allow you to perform transformations of almost all types.

To find a suitable site, open any search engine and enter the query “Convert format X to format Y online.” Most likely, you will see several sites that solve your problem. For example, one of the largest resources is https://www.online-convert.com/ru.

Large online converters work with almost any format and allow you to perform quite complex conversions

The approximate algorithm for working with such sites is always simple: download the source file, select the extension into which you want to convert it, and wait a little, since the conversion process sometimes takes several minutes (depending on the speed of the Internet connection, the power of the servers and the file size).

Video: best online converter

When saving a file

Every modern program allows you to save the project you are working on as a file. Typically, two options are provided: “Save” and “Save As...”. The first is offered for quick saving in a standard extension (each program itself selects a standard format) and resaving after making changes.

The second method will allow you to choose in which format you want to receive the created file. Change the File Type line to specify the extension you want. In most cases, the application will provide a large selection of formats, but sometimes it is limited to two or three or even one option.

When executing the “Save As...” command, you can select the required file type

Video: How to change file format in Windows 10

Third party conversion software

There are a huge number of programs designed to change file formats. There are both paid versions and their free counterparts. Most of them specialize in a certain type of element. For example, they work only with videos or only with pictures.

To find the program that best suits your needs, use the query “Program to convert X to Y,” where X and Y are the starting and ending formats, respectively. Below are just some of the most famous and convenient programs in this area.

Free FLV Converter

Free FLV Converter is a partially free program that allows you to convert videos to a variety of formats. It can create a file with an extension not only for Windows, but also for other operating systems: IOS, MacOS, Android. You can download the free version or buy a full-fledged paid version on the official website of the developer - https://www.flv.com/flvconverter.html.

Free FLV Converter converts flv video files to all popular media formats and back

First PDF

First PDF works with .pdf, .docx, .html and other text formats, as well as MS Excel tables. With its help, you can convert from one extension to another. There is support for changing the file extension to .jpg, .png, .bmp, .gif, .tiff. You can download the free version or buy a full-fledged paid version on the official website of the developer - https://www.pdftoword.ru/free-converter.html.

Despite its name, First PDF converts text files, images and even MS Excel spreadsheets

How to change file type in Windows 10?

Once the format has started to appear in the element name, you can proceed as follows:

• Call the context menu of the object (right-click) and select the “Rename” action:

• Specify the desired value, for example, turn “txt” into “bat”.

By the way, this technique is often used when creating simple scripts for the operating system. First, the program text is typed in notepad, then the format changes to executable bat and you can safely run it as a regular program. Similarly, you can change txt to cfg if necessary.

• In addition to the context menu, the renaming command can be called by pressing the F2 function key for the selected object.

Such manipulations should only be performed when you know what you are doing. Otherwise, the file may become inoperable. If this happens, just return the old type, and everything will work out.

Why do files need an extension?

Any file at the lowest level is a set of bytes arranged in a certain order. By opening it, we order the system to read, divide and display them so that it is convenient for us to work with them. For example, convert these bytes into text in a certain human, not machine language. The same thing happens with more complex elements: video, music, programs - initially it’s just a sequence of machine codes.

The file extension tells the operating system which program can correctly decrypt this set of bytes. Here are some examples of commonly encountered extensions:

• .txt - the file contains only text; notepad is enough to display it;
• .exe is a set of commands that must be executed to run a program;
• .xls is a spreadsheet in MS Excel format, which requires an appropriate office application to run.

Windows has an association system: each file is associated with a program that “knows” its format.

Having received a command to open a file with the .xls extension, the operating system launches the MS Excel application, because the association between these objects is set by default

If you open a file with the wrong application, then some result will be obtained, but obviously not what was expected. Let's say you try to use Notepad for the .docx format (which belongs to files produced by the Word program). The text itself will be displayed correctly, because notepad can turn sets of bytes into letters and numbers, but underscores, links, highlights, inserted pictures and other media elements will turn into incomprehensible characters or will not be displayed at all, since notepad cannot decipher bytes of more complex formatting tools text.

If you open, for example, a .txt file with a program for displaying videos, you will get an error, since this application will not be able to fit the text bytes to the video format.

Encoding: how the format helps recognize bytes

If you select the wrong program in an open file, you can see strange symbols (for example, triangles, circles, etc.) where, according to logic, there should be plain text. It happens like this:

1. The source file contains the correct set of bytes: 000011100010111100101111000011100010111000101010 (using the word "Yak" in binary for brevity).
2. If the file was opened by the correct program that could work with its extension, the user would see the word “Yak”. But the wrong application is called. It begins to read the first byte: in the correct program it encoded the letter “I”, and in others it denotes the question mark “?”. The same thing happens with the next letter - it will be displayed as a special symbol that is not very clear to an ignorant person. This is how you get strange-looking texts in programs and websites.

   
   When you open a file with a pdf extension with Notepad, the screen will display “abracadabra” of special characters

The process described above is called encoding: a certain character is assigned to a certain byte. Each format can have a different character assigned to the same byte, so you need to choose the right extensions.

Table: main extensions and their tasks

Batch Processing

What if it is necessary to change not one, but five, ten or more elements at once? You should do this:

• We go to the desired directory and in an unoccupied (empty) area we right-click while simultaneously holding Shift on the keyboard;
• A menu will appear where you need to select “Open command window...”:

• Now enter the following sequence in the console:

ren *.txt *.bat

ren is a renaming command followed by a space. Next, we indicate the mask “*” (all files) and after a dot we put the extension that we want to change. And again a space, followed by a similar design, but with a new format.

How to quickly change the file format from pdf to word?

The pdf format is lighter than regular word, so text files are often converted to neg. Yes, and editing such a file is more difficult; you need to install a special pdf editor. True, not all editors are well suited for this purpose.

It is very easy to use and converts to almost all possible formats. The idea is this: select a file, select a conversion format, convert and save the result to your computer. There are a lot of such online converters; which one you choose is your decision. However, I note that when converting from pdf to word, all the information contained in the pdf will most often be transferred to word in the form of pictures.

Microsoft Word 2013-2016 has a built-in function for converting pdf files. We follow this path: file – open. A window will appear where we find our pdf file and select it. It will open in the Word editor, where we can edit it and save it in word format. But the Word program easily saves the text file as a pdf. When saving, select the file type pdf.

The saved document will then open in a pdf program.

"Almighty" notepad

Although there are a lot of advanced text editors, the standard Notepad remains the simplest tool for working with the hosts file and creating bat scripts. I already mentioned this possibility above.

You need to create a text document, for example, on the Desktop:

Or open an existing element (the same hosts - but only with administrator rights).

After making changes, press Ctrl + S to save and see the Explorer dialog box. In order to change the format, you should select “All...” from the list in the “Type” field, and then enter the desired extension in the name field after the name and dot.

Converting as a way to change the extension

It was not by chance that we gave the example in the paragraph above with changing the JPG extension to GIF. If you try to open the renamed file in Internet Explorer, you will find that the browser does not recognize it.

The reason is very simple - changing the file extension in Windows 10 does not change the file type, as it was JPG, it remains the same. To open files in associated applications, simply changing the extension is often not enough, since you need to transform the file structure itself, converting it to another format that belongs to the same group.

We will not dwell on the topic of conversion; we will only note that there are a huge number of file converters, not only desktop and universal, but also online. By using any of them, you will not only change the extension of the file you need, but also qualitatively change its structure, making it possible to process it in specialized applications.

How to quickly change the photo format to jpg?

It would seem that a photo is a picture and it is already in jpg format. However, some cameras save pictures in different formats and often in png. But there may be other formats.

Changing this format to jpg is very simple. Since these are all graphic files, we select the extension to be changed, delete it, and instead enter the required format - jpg. True, this is good for a very small number of files. Even renaming 10 pieces in this way will be difficult.

But the developers are meeting the users halfway. It is enough to install any graphic viewer-editor, for example FastStone or XnView, or maybe some other, there are many different ones. It provides a batch change of both file extensions and their names. These are the features of changing file formats that exist. Good luck!

Source

How to change the Word file format from doc to docx?

The doc format is an earlier version of Word. But many people still have these old versions. In Word, starting from 2007, you can open the doc format and save it to docx. The same can be done the other way around, if you are sending a file to a person who has an old version and will not open the new format. But what if they sent you a file in a new format, but you have an old version?

Everything is simple here, you just remove the last letter x in the file extension, and your file is ready to open in older versions. But renaming it back doesn't do anything. If you rename from doc to docx, Word will throw an error. Here again, we resort to the help of converters or download the doc file into a new version of Word and resave it in docx format.