Extract text from Shogi game records (KIF)
To convert KIF game records to another format, you need Kifu for Windows or other Game software.
To convert other file formats to the "Game Match Record" file type, you need software like Kifu for Windows or a similar tool.
A .KIF file primarily acts as a Shogi (Japanese chess) game record. It contains move-by-move notations, match metadata, time limits, and board state data. Traditional Shogi players use Kifu for Windows to generate and read these files. A secondary, highly obscure use of the .KIF extension is the Kiseido Image File, an old graphical format formerly tied to Adobe Photoshop.
The main disadvantage of .KIF game records is severe character encoding friction. Older files utilize legacy Japanese Shift-JIS encoding. If you open them on a standard Western operating system, you will face unreadable mojibake (garbled text). Furthermore, reading the tactical board state requires dedicated Shogi software. The format is completely unsupported by standard browsers, social networks, or default document viewers. Kiseido Image Files suffer a similar fate, acting as an obsolete format that modern image viewers cannot decode.
To safely archive or share Shogi notation, convert the file to PDF to embed the fonts and lock the layout, or to TXT using standard UTF-8 encoding for raw data parsing. For Kiseido graphics, convert to JPG or PNG for immediate web compatibility. Drag and drop your file to analyze and convert it - free, online, and without installing software.
Convert.Guru analyzes your KIF file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted SOR files.
If you want to convert KIF file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Kifu for Windows or similar software from the "Shogi Game Move Notation" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to KIF, try Kifu for Windows or another comparable tool in the "Shogi Game Move Notation" 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 KIF converter.