ID to TXT Converter

ID to TXT Conversion Explained

Converting an .ID file to a .TXT file changes how the data is structured and accessed, but the results depend entirely on the source software.

For SOLIDWORKS, the swdata99.id file is already a plain text file containing a version string (such as SOLIDWORKS 2023 SP05). Converting or renaming it to .TXT simply makes it easier to read in standard text editors.

For Lotus Notes (now HCL Notes), the .ID file is an encrypted binary security token. It contains private keys, certificates, and passwords. Converting this file to plain text is generally a bad idea. You cannot convert a Notes ID to a functional text document. You can only extract specific metadata (like usernames or public keys) into a text format. If you forcefully save a Notes .ID file as a .TXT file, you lose all cryptographic functionality and the file becomes useless for authentication.

Typical Tasks and Users

• CAD Administrators: IT professionals managing SOLIDWORKS deployments often encounter the "source folder is not versioned properly" error. They convert or open the swdata99.id file as text to verify the installation version, or they create a .TXT file and rename it to .ID to fix the error.
• System Administrators: IT staff managing HCL Domino environments need to audit user accounts. They extract expiration dates, usernames, and public keys from binary .ID files and export this data into .TXT logs for compliance tracking.
• Security Analysts: Professionals analyzing legacy systems may use text extraction tools to pull readable string fragments from corrupted Notes .ID files.

Software & Tool Support

• Text Editors: Notepad++, Microsoft Notepad, and Apple TextEdit can natively open and edit SOLIDWORKS .ID files because they contain unformatted text.
• HCL Domino Administrator: The official administrative tool for HCL Notes. It can read binary .ID files and export certificate data into text-based formats like PEM.
• Command-Line Tools: The Linux and Windows strings command can extract readable ASCII or Unicode text fragments from a binary Lotus Notes .ID file, ignoring the encrypted garbage data.
• Convert.Guru: A web-based conversion tool that safely parses .ID files, identifies the file type, and extracts readable text without altering the original file.

Pros and Cons of the Conversion

• Pros: Converting to .TXT makes SOLIDWORKS version strings instantly human-readable. For Lotus Notes, it allows administrators to log metadata, audit security certificates, and store user information in a universal, searchable format.
• Cons: The conversion destroys the cryptographic utility of Lotus Notes files. .TXT files cannot store binary encryption keys.
• Fidelity Loss: If you open a Lotus Notes .ID file in a text editor and save it as .TXT, the text editor will corrupt the binary encoding. The resulting file will contain garbled characters (mojibake) and cannot be converted back to a working .ID file.

Conversion Difficulties & Why Convert.Guru

The main technical problem in this conversion is handling binary encryption. A naive conversion attempts to read the Lotus Notes .ID file as standard UTF-8 text, resulting in unreadable output. A proper conversion pipeline must parse the binary structure, bypass the encrypted payload (RSA/AES), and extract only the unencrypted metadata headers.

Convert.Guru is a strong choice for this task because it handles the parsing automatically. It detects whether the uploaded .ID file is a simple SOLIDWORKS text string or a complex Lotus Notes binary token. It safely extracts the human-readable text and discards the encrypted binary data, providing a clean .TXT file without risking corruption to your original file.

ID vs. TXT: What is the better choice?

Which format should you choose?

Keep the .ID format if you need to authenticate a user in HCL Notes or run the SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager. The host software strictly requires this exact file extension to function.

Choose .TXT only if you are archiving user metadata, troubleshooting a SOLIDWORKS version string, or extracting public keys for an IT audit. Avoid this conversion entirely if your goal is to back up a Lotus Notes user profile. A plain text file cannot store the private keys required for a successful login.

Conclusion

Converting .ID to .TXT makes sense when you need to troubleshoot SOLIDWORKS installation folders or extract readable metadata from Lotus Notes security tokens. The biggest limitation to watch for is data destruction: forcefully converting a binary Notes ID into a text file will permanently break its encryption and render it useless for authentication. Convert.Guru provides a reliable, read-only extraction process that correctly identifies the specific .ID file type and safely outputs the readable text, ensuring you get the data you need without corrupting the source file.