File with mdi extension. How to open an MDI file: what program to open and convert to other formats

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MDI Page Layout File Format

The MDI (Microsoft Document Imaging) file extension was originally created by Microsoft as one of the components of the Office product suite. This file type is used by Microsoft to save documents that have been scanned into your device. These images can then be used in an optical character recognition program that scans the document's graphics and converts it to text. The specified process allows you to create DOC files - standard Microsoft documents word. Usually, MDI file may only be created by Microsoft software specifically designed for that purpose. Microsoft office Document Imaging (MODI) is a standard part of Office XP - in versions 2003 and 2007.

Technical information about MDI files

When the MODI program saves text after it has been recognized, the text is saved in TIFF format. However, the resulting TIFF file does not meet the standards of typical TIFF files. Because of this, the file can only be used in the MODI program. Although the MODI format was standard in Office XP for several years, it is no longer supported. This means that if you have an old document that was created in MODI and has an MDI file extension, you won't be able to open it unless you have the old one. versions of Office xp. You will need to convert the MDI file to a format that can be processed by your operating system.

More information about the MDI format

Most users rarely encounter MDI files. However, sometimes documents with this extension end up on their computers and cause certain problems. The thing is, to work with them, you need special program which not everyone knows about.

If you also find yourself in such an unpleasant situation and do not know how to open an MDI file, then this article is for you. Description will be given here this extension, as well as programs for working with it.

Description

It is logical that before opening an MDI document, you need to figure out in which application it was created. Let's start with this. So, Microsoft Document Imaging, as you might guess from its name, was developed by Microsoft for storing bitmap images obtained as a result of scanning. Besides, given format supports the ability to save various footnotes, annotations, as well as recognized text.

The official application for working with the MDI extension is the Document Imaging program included in the MS Office package. However, there is one big problem with this utility. The fact is that, for some reason, the developers decided to exclude Document Imaging from the latest Office builds, forcing ordinary users puzzle over how to open a file with the MDI extension. But, fortunately, there is a solution, and not even one.

Standard way

Despite the fact that Document Imaging has been removed from modern versions of MS Office, it can still be found. To do this, just install on your computer "Office 2007", which includes the utility. In this case, during the installation of the software package, you will need to manually set some settings. It is done like this:

1. During one of the installation steps, you will be prompted to manually select the applications that you want to see on your computer. Give your consent to this operation.
2. A large list of components included in MS Office will open. You will need to go to the "Office Tools" section.
3. Now find Document Imaging and tick it.
4. Click "Next" and wait for the installation process to complete.

After that, the program will be installed on your computer, and the question of how to open MDI documents will disappear.

Without installing "Office"

At some point, Microsoft employees realized their mistake and included Document Imaging in Share Point. Moreover, they have added the ability to download this package for free. In other words, if you still do not know how to open an MDI file, you can simply download Share Point using the search on the official Microsoft website.

This method is perfect for those who do not want to install outdated version MS office. Just keep in mind that you need to download Share Point from the official site, otherwise you risk infecting your computer with some kind of malware.

Third Party Applications

It often happens that not one, but several programs are used at once to work with a certain format. This is also true for the MDI extension. So, several third-party developers have released their utilities for opening these files at once.

The first program designed for this purpose is called MDI Viewer. It boasts a clear interface, as well as high speed. In addition, the application is distributed free of charge, so you will not have any problems using it.

In addition, you can use one of the so-called online converters and convert MDI into a more convenient format for later work with it. For example, this feature is available in Kinati 2PDF. This is, in fact, a regular site where you upload an MDI document, and then, after a few seconds, download back the same file, but with a PDF extension.

Install optional products - File Magic (Solvusoft) | | | | Uninstall

Use another program

If you cannot view the MDI file by double-clicking it, try opening it with another program. Some of the most popular programs to open MDI files - Borland Multiple Document Interface, MIDI-sequention Sound and Office Document Imaging File. Browse the developer websites, download one or more of these programs, then try opening the MDI file again.

Get key from file type

A single file extension can be used for multiple file types. Knowing the type of file you have can help you know how to open it. Most MDI files are categorized as Page Layout Files, which can be opened by numerous software packages. See if you have a program already installed on your computer that is designed to open Page Layout Files. Hopefully this program can also work with your MDI file.

You can find out what type of file your MDI file is by looking at the file's properties. Right-click the file icon and select Properties or Additional Information". On a Windows machine, the file type will be listed under File Type; on a Mac, it will be under Kind.

Contact developer

Nobody knows more about file extensions than software developers. If you are unable to open the MDI file with any of the regular programs, you can contact the program's software developer and ask them for help. Find the developer of your program in the list below:

File extension	.mdi
File category
Related programs	Microsoft Office XP, 2003, 2007 (Windows) Bugysoft MDI2PDF Converter (Windows)

Software	developer
Borland Multiple Document Interface	Borland Software Corporation
MIDI sequence sound	Microsoft Developer
Office Document Imaging File	Microsoft Corporation

Get a universal file viewer

When no other program will open your MDI file, universal file viewers like File Magic (Download) are here to save the day. These programs can open many different types files, so if none of the above tips work, a universal file viewer is the way to go. Please note that some files are not compatible with universal file programs and can only be opened in binary format.

The most common problem that prevents users from opening this file is an incorrectly assigned program. To fix this in Windows, you need to right-click on the file, in the context menu, move the mouse over the "Open with" item, and select the "Choose a program ..." item from the drop-down menu. As a result, you will see a list installed programs on your computer and you can choose the one that suits you. We also recommend checking the box next to "Use this application for all MDI files".

Another problem that our users also encounter quite often is that the MDI file is corrupted. This situation can arise in many cases. For example: the file was not downloaded completely as a result server errors, the file was damaged initially, etc. To fix this problem, use one of the recommendations:

• Try to find desired file from another source on the Internet. You may be lucky to find a better version. Google search example: "File filetype:MDI" . Just replace the word "file" with the name you want;
• Ask to send you original file again, it may have been damaged in transit;

A simple but nice program to view files in MDI format. It only allows you to view documents and save individual pages as images.

Screenshot gallery

No matter how much we curse MicroSoft, we can't do without it - even Windows itself is its work :). But, in addition to the system itself, the corporation has also created many applications for it, which have become standards and benchmarks in their field.

An example of such a standard can be considered the office software package Microsoft Office, which has grown to an incredible size today. Usually, speaking of Office, we mean, first of all, its most popular components: text word editor, spreadsheet processor Excel and Power Point presentation system. However, these programs are only a small part of the entire office "colossus".

And today I would like to talk about one component that is not the most popular, but delivers a lot of trouble to users. office suite from MicroSoft - Microsoft Office Document Imaging. This program allows you to work with scanned materials in TIFF formats and MDI. And, if TIFF scans can be opened using third-party viewers and converters, then the MDI format is closed, so there is very little third-party software to at least open it.

MODI for free!

It is worth immediately making a reservation about the original package of Microsoft Office Document Imaging. Since MicroSoft removed it from the original Office (as of version 2010), it has been made available as a feature in the free SharePoint Designer 2007 developer suite.

Therefore, if you are not afraid of downloading an almost 300-megabyte installer from which we need to install only one small component, then download SharePoint and select "Not available" for all components except MODI during installation.

Are there alternatives?

Until recently there was free version the popular MDI viewer MDI2PDF Converter, which allowed you to open files and convert them to a more readable PDF format. But, all good things tend to end someday, and therefore this program completely became paid, leaving only the possibility of viewing in the free edition.

So we set out to find her anyway. free analogue and after a long search, we found a small application called Free MDI Image Viewer in the open spaces of the “bourgeoisnet”.

Program features

• viewing MDI documents;
• viewing multi-page TIFFs (undocumented feature);
• convert MDI to JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIF graphic formats;
• preservation of the OCR layer when converting to TIF.

As you can see, there are few available functions, but for lack of the best option, you can use what is at hand.

Installing and preparing the program for work

Installation is carried out using a standard installer, with which problems should not arise. You don’t need to change anything during installation, so all our actions come down to clicking the “Next” button. After the installation process is completed, we will see the main window of Free MDI Image Viewer:

By default, it opens in full screen, which is not very convenient, but it can be easily reduced to the desired size using the mouse. If you are not confused by the English-language interface of the program, then you can start using it without additional manipulations.

If you want to Russify Free MDI Image Viewer, then replace the original file " FreeMDIImageViewer.exe" in the "Program Files" folder with a similar file that you will find in the archive downloaded from our website. In addition to Russification of the menu, you will also get the opportunity to open TIF and TIFF files (including multi-page ones!).

Working with a Russified program

Unfortunately, Free MDI Image Viewer does not support the Drag&Drop function, so you will have to open files for viewing using the menu of the program itself. Open the first menu "File" and click the "Open" button. A file selection window will appear with the filter for MDI files active by default. However, if you used our localization, then by clicking on the "File type" field, you can also select filters for TIF and TIFF documents:

Let's not be too smart and choose what we installed the program for, that is, the MDI file. Select the desired file and click open. Be prepared that Free MDI Image Viewer may take a long time to open your MDI document and even freeze sometimes! Be patient and wait a minute - the file should open:

In the file view mode, the program workspace is divided into two panels:

• on the left is a thumbnail panel that displays thumbnails of the document's pages;
• on the right is the preview panel for the selected page thumbnail.

With help context menu or the "View" menu, we can control the page view (although it's easier to do it with the mouse). Alas, here you will not find the functions of rotating scanned images and cropping them, but they are not so often required. Also, the function of selecting and copying a layer of recognized text directly from the program would not hurt.

Looking at the thumbnail panel, it seems that the text on the page thumbnails is still highlighted, but, unfortunately, this is not the case. Perhaps, in the next releases of the program, the author will implement this opportunity, but for now, you will have to be content with little ...

Export to graphic formats and extract content

So, viewing MDI and multi-page TIFF files is already good in itself, but not enough :). It would be desirable to somehow convert the document into a more universal form, and ideally also extract text and pictures from it. Not without unnecessary hemorrhoids, but do it with Help Free MDI Image Viewer is possible. To do this, the first step is to go to the "File" menu and select the "Save As" list:

The program allows us to convert an MDI document into one of the popular graphic formats(JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF and TIF) of your choice. There are a couple of features though:

1. For all formats (except TIF) saving is carried out page by page. That is, you will have to manually select each page and save it under a new name.
2. The TIF format is saved in multi-page mode by default. That is, all pages of an MDI document are packed into one graphic file without the need to save them separately. At the same time, if we open such a TIF image with a regular graphic viewer, we will see only the first page. To view all the rest, you will need either an advanced photo viewer, or a special reader, or a full-fledged graphics editor.
3. The good news is that when saving to TIF, Free MDI Image Viewer sometimes saves a layer with recognized text if it existed in the original MDI file. The only trouble is, due to the complex structures in this layer, the program sometimes refuses to save to TIF, giving an error :(. In this case, we will have to use page-by-page conversion to regular graphic files.

Now that our MDI file has been converted, it's time to think about how we can extract the contents from it. The simplest and universal way here, of course, text recognition with the help of special programs.

Of the free ones, alas, there is only one single CuneiForm application that is on our website. You will need to open all saved images in it and recognize them by saving text and graphic data to a file.

Things are a bit more complicated with the TIF format... Once Ruslan Bogdanov told me that multi-page TIF files can be opened in Photoshop and copy text from them from the OCR layer. However, I specifically tried to repeat the experience and it didn’t work out for me :(. Moreover, I found many pages of debates on the Internet about this possibility and almost all of them boiled down to the fact that such a function is a myth ...

Nevertheless, the format is successfully opened in the GIMP graphics editor, although I did not succeed in copying the text from the file :(.

There is an even more difficult path, which is still more likely to lead you to success. This method consists in converting a TIF file to PDF format, and using the viewer to try to copy the text from it.

You can turn a TIFF document into PDF, for example, using the FastStone Image Viewer graphic file viewer, and the easiest way to try to copy text is with Foxit Reader.

Advantages and disadvantages of the program

• viewing MDI files;
• the ability to view multi-page TIFF documents;
• page-by-page export to graphic formats;
• export to multi-page TIF with recognition layer support.

• files take too long to open;
• there is no way to copy text from the recognition layer;
• there is no direct export to PDF function;
• not always correct export to TIF.

conclusions

In the face of Free MDI Image Viewer, we have a simple, but work program to view MDI documents. In the absence of the ability to install "native" Microsoft Office Document Imaging, this application is perhaps the only possible way open scans created in it. Yes, not just open, but also save as images, which can then be at least recognized, at least printed.

The only thing that upsets me is the not always stable operation of the program and the lack of its 64-bit version (although it may work on 64-bit systems - try it;)). Good luck and less headaches with a variety of formats :).

P.S. Permission is granted to freely copy and quote this article, provided that the open active link on the source and preservation of the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny.