Tools for data conversion

In Windows, each application is assigned an icon that is displayed on the desktop, in the Start menu or in the Explorer, representing the respective program. program to the user. An icon can contain images in different sizes. Windows automatically selects the best suitable size for the current display mode. Common sizes are 32x32, 64x64, 128x128 and 256x256 pixels.

To avoid having to create a separate image for each size required, it is advisable to first create a graphic in scalable vector format (SVG). The Inkscape program, for example, is suitable for this. PNG images of any size can then be easily created from a graphic created in this way. Inkscape has a built-in export function for this purpose. However, this requires some manual work if you want to do it directly from the drawing program. The PNG images created in this way must then be converted into an icon (ICO format) using a suitable conversion program.

The programs provided here simplify this process:

• Creating an icon from an SVG image (SvgToIcon)
  In the program window (see above right), the directory with the SVG images is selected at the top. All matching files are displayed in the list below. After selecting a target directory for the converted files and the desired image sizes, start the conversion by clicking on the large button on the right. First, a conversion to then PNG format is performed using the Inkscape command line. The ICO file is then generated from this using an internal program function. The progress of the conversion is displayed at the bottom of a window.
• Create an icon from several selected PNG images (PngToIcon) If suitable PNG images (max. size 256x256 pixels) already exist from other sources, they can be converted into an icon using this program. Inkscape is not required in this case, as an internal program function is used to create the ICO file.

Languages: German and English

Download - Vers. 1.0.1 v. 2024-10-23:

• Zip archive with the executable programs (2,61 MB)
• Source text (435 kB)

Many text files, such as those created with Notepad or PsPad, are usually saved in the ANSI format (ISO_8859-1) commonly used in Western Europe. This means that you are limited to the characters contained in this character set (e.g. umlauts commonly used in Germany or French accented vowels). Windows itself supports the Unicode character set, which contains practically all existing characters worldwide.
The program offered here for download allows existing text files in ANSI format (or another ISO-8859 format, such as Greek or Eastern European) to be converted to Unicode format. You can choose between the 16-bit format (UTF-16, common under Windows) and the 8-bit format (UTF-8, common under Linux). Conversion in the reverse direction is also offered, although there are restrictions as the target format to be selected does not support all possible characters.

The program package also contains two console programs for checking the integrity of UTF-8 text files and for batch converting texts in ANSI code to UTF-8.

Languages: German and English

Download - Version 1.1.1 v. October 2024:

• Zip archive with the executable program (2,54 MB)