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file-conversion posts

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services

Zamzar online file converter adds premium services

Zamzar
There's nothing we love better than a good file conversion application. Well, maybe not nothing, but if you've got a PDF that you need to turn into a DOC or a WMA that you desperately want to be a MP3, the last thing you want to do is spend your time searching the web for the appropriate file converter. That's why we're big fans of tools that let you convert multiple file types like Mediacoder and Super.

And then there's online do-it-all file conversion service Zamzar. Zamzar lets you convert media files, documents, images, pretty much anything. Zamzar is a web based service, so it might take a little longer to convert some files since you need to upload them to a server, wait for the conversion to complete, and then check your email inbox for a download link. But as a web based application, Zamzar is useful for Windows, Mac, and Linux users whether they're at home, work, or using a library computer.

When we first reviewed Zamzar over a year ago, one of the free service's limitations was that you could only upload files up to 100MB at a time. Now Zamzar is offering premium accounts that allow users to convert files up to 1GB (which could come in handy if you want to convert video files).

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Commercial

DeskUNPDF Pro: Industrial strength (but overpriced) PDF converter

DeskUNPDFThere are plenty of applications out there that let you convert office documents, pictures, or pretty much anything else to PDF documents. Some of our favorites are doPDF or CutePDF. Both are free applications that install "virtual printers," meaning you can hit the print button in any application on your PC and save the output to a PDF file.

But there aren't as many options for converting PDF files to other formats. Docudesk DeskUNPDF Pro launches today as an all-purpose PDF unconverter. Docudesk already sells DeskUNPDF Standard, a $40 utility which will let you convert PDF files to DOC or ODT formats. DeskUNPDF Pro costs a whopping $60, but adds support for XLS, CSV, XML, HTML, xHTML, SVG, BMP, PNG, TIF, and JPEG conversions.

DeskUNPDF Pro is obviously targeted at professionals who need to convert a lot of documents quickly. But when you can use online file conversion services like Zamzar to do pretty much the same job for free, we can't help but thinking $60 is a bit too much to pay for this file converter.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services

Convert pretty much anything with youconvertIt

YouconvertIt
Anything you can do offline, you can do online these days. Whether you can do it better is another story.

YouconvertIt is a new web-based file conversion service. Like Zamzar, YouconvertIt lets you upload audio, video, image, or document files and convert from one format to another. Just select the file from your computer to upload, select your target format, and the web service will send you an e-mail when your new file is ready to download.

Unlike Zamzar, YouconvertIt doesn't appear to have a file size limit (although that may change), and currently has no advertising (which will definitely change). Oh yeah, and you can convert units like miles, kilometers, inches, and feet.

The service is definitely fast and convenient. But you get a lot more control over your file conversions if you're using desktop software. If you're converting a document from HTML to text, this might not matter so much. But if you're converting a WAV to MP3 or MPEG-2 to MP4, there's no telling what kind of file size/quality you're going to get with these web-based services. If you need to convert a file and you don't happen to have a good desktop program handy, YouconvertIt will do in a pinch. But we wouldn't recomment it if you regularly need to convert/compress multimedia files.

[via AppScout]

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