Extract text from OpenOffice AutoText files (BAU)
To convert BAU files to another format, you need Apache OpenOffice or other Settings software.
To convert other file formats to the "Configuration File" file type, you need software like Apache OpenOffice or a similar tool.
The .bau extension is primarily associated with AutoText glossary files generated by Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. These files serve as storage containers for reusable text snippets, formatting templates, and macros that users can quickly insert into documents using shortcuts. While efficient for frequent typists, the format is essentially a proprietary configuration file (often a ZIP archive containing XML data) buried within the user's profile directory. This is a common headache when migrating to Microsoft Word or other processors, as standard import tools rarely recognize raw .bau files. To salvage the text snippets for use in other software, converting the internal structure to XML or extracting the plain text to TXT is the most practical approach.
A secondary but significant usage (approx. 18%) involves student assessment and grade overview files exported by Schild-NRW, a school administration software widely used in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. These are specialized data exports used for reporting. Because these files are strictly formatted for administrative import/export, they are unreadable to standard viewers. Converting these to CSV or XLSX allows school administrators to view the raw data in Microsoft Excel without needing the specific education software installed.
Convert.Guru analyzes your BAU file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted SX, RELS and OTF files.
If you want to convert BAU file to INI, CFG, CONF, CONFIG, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, ENV, PROPERTIES or RC, you can use Apache OpenOffice or similar software from the "AutoText Glossary Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert ZSHRC, CONF, RCFILE, GITCONFIG, RC, PLIST, BASHRC, CONFIG, PROFILE, INI, PREFS or CFG files to BAU, try Apache OpenOffice or another comparable tool in the "AutoText Glossary Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our BAU converter.