Extract text from S4P files
To convert your S4P file to another format, you need Keysight PathWave ADS or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "RF Engineering Data" file type, you need software like Keysight PathWave ADS or a similar tool.
An .S4P file is a Touchstone data file containing Scattering parameters (S-parameters) for a 4-port microwave or RF network. These files use a standardized ASCII text format to store frequency-dependent data (magnitude and phase) describing how signals behave when passing through a 4-port device, such as a differential line, coupler, or balun. While the files are technically plain text, the raw data structure - columns of complex numbers representing reflection and transmission coefficients - is difficult for humans to interpret without visualization.
Engineers often face friction because specialized RF software like Keysight PathWave ADS or Ansys HFSS is required to natively plot the data on Smith charts or Cartesian graphs. These tools are expensive and resource-heavy. Furthermore, attempting to open .S4P files in standard spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel often breaks formatting due to header comments (!) and varying delimiter standards.
For analysis and reporting outside of dedicated engineering environments, the best workflow is converting .S4P to CSV or XLSX. This structures the complex data into clean columns, making it accessible for Python scripts, MATLAB, or Excel plotting. For documentation and archiving, converting the raw text to PDF ensures the data integrity is preserved in a universally viewable format.
Convert.Guru analyzes your S4P file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted S2P, S1P and ST1H files.
If you want to convert S4P file to , you can use Keysight PathWave ADS or similar software from the "RF Network Parameter Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to S4P, try Keysight PathWave ADS or another comparable tool in the "RF Network Parameter Storage" 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 S4P converter.