Extract text from Preset files (PRE)
To convert PRE Presets to another format, you need Lotus Freelance Graphics or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Presentation and Preset Data" file type, you need software like Lotus Freelance Graphics or a similar tool.
Most often, .PRE files are legacy Freelance Graphics presentation documents created by Lotus Software (later acquired by IBM). Another major use case is facial animation presets for the Valve Source Engine, heavily utilized in tools like Source Filmmaker. The extension is highly fragmented: it is also used for DICOM Presentation State files, FastReport zlib-compressed report files, and even Volkswagen Group (VAG) ODIS-E vehicle diagnostic adaptation presets.
The .PRE format is notoriously difficult for users today. Freelance Graphics files are closed, proprietary, and completely unsupported by modern suites like Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides. The preset variations (Source Engine, VAG diagnostics) are highly specialized and often useless outside their native environments, although they are frequently stored as plain XML or zlib data.
Converting a Lotus presentation to PPTX or PDF usually requires running a vintage virtual machine setup of Lotus SmartSuite to manually export the deck. Standard online converters fail because they cannot emulate this 1990s software. If the file is an XML preset, converting it to TXT is trivial, but mapping it to another 3D software requires custom scripts.
Because the format has multiple distinct meanings, standard tools will reject it. Even if it is an undocumented proprietary format, our analyzer can detect underlying embedded data like XML or JFIF preview images.
Convert.Guru analyzes your PRE file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted P0000001, P0000002, PRZ, MP4, PRN, TCX and CWK files.
If you want to convert PRE file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use Lotus Freelance Graphics or similar software from the "Legacy Presentation or Preset File" 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 PRE, try Lotus Freelance Graphics or another comparable tool in the "Legacy Presentation or Preset File" 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 PRE converter.