# Text Format Conversion Settings

The Conversion tab defines how files should be loaded and saved. Text Compare sessions can compare plain text files, such as programming source files, directly. To compare files with structured or proprietary formats, it may be necessary to first extract the plain text content from the file. For example, Microsoft Word documents are binary files, but Beyond Compare can extract and compare their textual content. Beyond Compare can highlight differences in words and sentences but cannot identify differences in formatting or embedded images. Pick a Conversion method. When using External program methods, you will need to specify a conversion program with the appropriate path and command line switches in the Loading edit. In order to support filenames with extended characters, make sure to pick the appropriate filename encoding (Unicode or ANSI). The following variables will be replaced with the indicated information:
%s | source file
%t | target file
%o | original file
Conversion programs are only considered successful if they return a zero exit code and generate a non-empty file. If you have a conversion program you want to use before saving, you can unmark the Disable editing checkbox and in the Saving edit specify that conversion program's path and command line switches. The above variables apply. The Encoding of most text files can be detected automatically, but you can specify a specific code page to use. Mark the Ctrl+Z indicates end of file checkbox for if your file type uses the hex value 1A as an EOF marker. The characters per line limit setting will break long lines at the indicated length. Those artificial line breaks are removed when saving an edited file. Trim trailing whitespace and Convert leading spaces to tabs are edits that can be performed before saving files.