MER Converter

Extract text from MER files


Drop or upload your .MER file
✈

How to extract text from your MER file

  1. Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your MER file.
  2. You’ll see a preview, if available.
  3. Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.

Convert MER to another file type

To convert your MER file to another format, you need FactoryTalk View Studio or other Developer software.

  • MER to APA
  • MER to MED
  • MER to AER
  • MER to JS
  • MER to TS
  • MER to PY
  • MER to JAVA
  • MER to CPP
  • MER to C
  • MER to CS
  • MER to PHP
  • MER to RB

Convert a file to MER

To convert other file formats to the "Industrial Automation Binary" file type, you need software like FactoryTalk View Studio or a similar tool.

  • SH to MER
  • PY to MER
  • KT to MER
  • PS1 to MER
  • SWIFT to MER
  • LUA to MER
  • PL to MER
  • JAVA to MER
  • SCALA to MER
  • JS to MER
  • VBS to MER
  • TS to MER

About MER files

The .MER file extension represents a Machine Edition Runtime file, the compiled executable format used by Rockwell Automation for their PanelView Plus Human Machine Interface (HMI) terminals. These files are generated by FactoryTalk View Studio and contain the compiled logic, graphics, and communication settings required to run industrial machinery interfaces.

From a workflow perspective, the .MER format poses significant challenges for engineers and integrators. It is a strictly proprietary, compiled binary intended for execution, not editing. Users commonly encounter problems when they need to modify an HMI project but only possess the .MER file (often retrieved from an old machine) rather than the original source project. If the developer compiled the file without checking "Always Allow Conversion" (or prior to version 5.0), the file is essentially a locked "black box," making reverse engineering impossible without specialized third-party tools or recreation from scratch. Furthermore, version mismatches between the runtime file and the FactoryTalk software can prevent restoration entirely.

To edit the content, the primary conversion goal is to "restore" the .MER file back to an APA (Application Archive) or a MED (Machine Edition Development) project file. This allows access to the tag database and displays within FactoryTalk View Studio. For archival or documentation purposes, users may also wish to capture screens or logs, but direct conversion to standard formats like PDF or CSV is not supported natively by the file itself.

Convert.Guru analyzes your MER file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.

Users also converted APA, MERMAID, ACD, ZIP, TBS, EDS, RSV, MED and AER files.



The MER 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 MER converter.