Extract text from KES files
To convert your KES file to another format, you need Kurzweil 3000 or other Text software.
To convert other file formats to the "Assistive Technology Document" file type, you need software like Kurzweil 3000 or a similar tool.
A .KES file is a proprietary document format created by Kurzweil 3000, an assistive technology tool developed by Kurzweil Education. These files contain scanned text that has been processed via OCR (Optical Character Recognition), along with embedded audio metadata, bookmarks, highlights, and voice speed settings used for text-to-speech playback.
The primary problem for .KES files is their vendor lock-in. You typically cannot open them without a licensed copy of Kurzweil 3000, which is expensive and often restricted to institutional computers. Users frequently encounter these files when trying to access study materials at home or on mobile devices where the specific software is unavailable. Furthermore, because the format is based on the legacy Microsoft Compound File structure, it is not natively indexed by operating systems or viewable in web browsers.
For accessibility and archiving, the best conversion target is PDF (specifically PDF/UA for accessibility), which preserves the visual layout and text. For users who rely on the audio features, converting the document's content to MP3 is a common workflow. For editing the OCR text, converting to DOCX (Microsoft Word) is recommended, though you may lose specific voice playback annotations.
Convert.Guru analyzes your KES file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted PDF, YJF, MBPV2, CACHE-7 and ZAR files.
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 KES converter.