Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your CPL file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert CPL to another file type
To convert CPL applets to another format, you need Windows Control Panel or other System software.
Convert a file to CPL
To convert other file formats to the "Windows Control Panel Applet" file type, you need software like Windows Control Panel or a similar tool.
About CPL files
The .CPL file extension primarily represents a Windows Control Panel Applet. These files are used by the Microsoft Windows operating system to launch configuration tools via the control.exe program. A smaller percentage of .CPL files are Control Program Language scripts for Trend Controls building automation systems or color palettes used by CorelDRAW. Users often struggle with .CPL files because they are essentially renamed DLL or EXE binaries. This makes them a severe security risk. Email providers and browsers routinely block them to prevent malware. Additionally, they are completely unsupported on macOS and Linux. Standard online converters fail to process .CPL files because they are compiled machine code or proprietary data arrays, not standard documents. You cannot directly convert an executable applet into a PDF or DOCX. For CorelDRAW palettes, the ideal target is an Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) file, but this requires the original application. Because .CPL files are closed, proprietary formats, extracting their contents safely is difficult. Often, only the original software can properly read or execute the data. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, viewing or conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CPL file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert CPL file to FAA, SYS, DLL, EXE, DRV, VXD, 386, COM, BAT, CMD, SCR or PIF, you can use Windows Control Panel or similar software from the "System Settings & Executables" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MSI, EXE, REG, MST, LNK, CAB, CAT, DRV, INF, SYS, MSU or DLL files to CPL, try Windows Control Panel or another comparable tool in the "System Settings & Executables" category.
The CPL Converter Story
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 CPL converter.