SHA to TEXT Converter

SHA to TEXT Conversion Explained

Converting .SHA to .TEXT transforms a 2D engineering drawing into a plain text document. This process extracts alphanumeric strings—such as labels, dimensions, and equipment tags—and completely discards all graphical geometry.

People convert .SHA to .TEXT to pull raw data out of proprietary CAD files. You gain machine-readable text that you can search, index, or import into a database. You lose 100% of the visual drawing, including lines, shapes, layers, and spatial context.

This conversion is a strict data extraction process. It is a bad idea if you need to view, share, or print the diagram. If you want to preserve the visual layout of a SmartSketch drawing without requiring CAD software, you should convert .SHA to .PDF or .SVG instead.

Typical Tasks and Users

This conversion serves specific data-processing workflows rather than drafting tasks. Common users include:

• Procurement Teams: Extracting Bill of Materials (BOM) data or part numbers from a drawing to populate an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
• Data Analysts: Pulling equipment tags from hundreds of legacy Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) to audit facility databases.
• Software Developers: Converting .SHA files to text to run grep searches or regular expressions across an entire directory of engineering files.

Software & Tool Support

The .SHA format is proprietary and requires specialized software to read, while .TEXT is universally supported.

• Hexagon SmartSketch: The official SmartSketch software (formerly Intergraph) creates and edits .SHA files. It can export text data using built-in reporting tools or custom VBScript macros via its COM API.
• Oracle AutoVue: AutoVue is an enterprise viewing tool that can open .SHA files and extract text strings for markup or copying.
• Text Editors: Once converted, .TEXT files open instantly in Notepad++, Visual Studio Code, or any basic operating system text editor.
• Command-Line Tools: Developers often use Python scripts or PowerShell to parse the resulting .TEXT files for specific tag formats.

Pros and Cons of the Conversion

Pros:

• Universal Compatibility: .TEXT files open on any operating system without expensive CAD licenses.
• Searchability: Plain text is easily indexed by desktop search tools and parsed by scripts.
• File Size: A .TEXT file containing only extracted labels is a fraction of the size of the original .SHA binary.

Cons:

• Total Visual Loss: All vector graphics, symbols, and line weights are permanently deleted.
• Loss of Context: A text string like "V-102" is extracted, but you no longer see which pipe or tank it points to.
• Formatting Loss: Fonts, text sizes, colors, and text box boundaries are not preserved in plain text.

Conversion Difficulties & Why Convert.Guru

The primary technical difficulty when you convert .SHA to .TEXT is the proprietary nature of the SmartSketch binary format. You cannot simply rename the file extension. Standard text extraction libraries (like those used for PDF or Word documents) cannot parse the internal structure of a .SHA file.

A proper conversion pipeline must decode the binary file, locate the specific data blocks containing text nodes, extract the character encoding (often ANSI or UTF-8), and output the strings while ignoring the geometric coordinate data. If done incorrectly, the output will be unreadable mojibake or missing critical labels.

Convert.Guru handles this proprietary parsing automatically. It safely reads the internal text nodes of the .SHA file and extracts the alphanumeric data into a clean .TEXT file. This allows you to access the drawing's text data immediately, without installing Hexagon software or writing custom API extraction scripts.

SHA vs. TEXT: What is the better choice?

Which format should you choose?

Choose .SHA when you need to edit the actual engineering drawing, modify piping routes, or adjust the layout of a schematic. It is the only format that retains the full intelligence of a SmartSketch document.

Choose .TEXT when you only care about the data inside the drawing. It is the best choice for counting equipment tags, extracting part numbers, or feeding drawing labels into a spreadsheet.

Avoid .TEXT if you need to show the drawing to a client or contractor. For visual sharing, convert the .SHA file to a standard image or document format instead.

Conclusion

Converting .SHA to .TEXT makes sense exclusively for data extraction and auditing workflows. The biggest limitation to watch for is the complete destruction of the visual diagram and the loss of spatial context between the extracted text labels. When you need to pull raw strings from proprietary engineering files quickly and accurately, Convert.Guru provides a reliable, server-side solution to convert .SHA to .TEXT without requiring specialized CAD software.