Virus Scan for AJC Grep

Gonzo "Phone license activation is required."
What is this? The '90s? :P
Just kidding. But is there really a phone license activation required to use this software?
Tech questions:
1-why should I choose AJC Grep vs BareGrep?
2-Can AJC Grep be run from the command line (as if it was the regular Unix grep)?
3-Is it fully compatible with all the Unix grep parameters, regex, etc?

Thanks in advance.

Oct 31 2017 at 3:13am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth When you purchase you will be sent an activation code by email to turn the trial version in to a licensed version.

1. I don't know much about BareGrep but some fairly unique things about this software that may not be in other products include:
+ Ability to switch between tree view, files view, matches view, context view, content view, output view while working with the search results. Often when you are looking at a match it is useful to switch to the tree view to see where you are in the big picture etc.
+ You can remove search results (individual matches, files, folders) from the list of results. This is useful if you are just working through the list and you want to remove them when finished with them or before you run the replace because you don't want it to replace everything found.
+ Search other locations other than Windows file systems - ftp, cloud etc
+ Syntax highlighting
+ Built in file editing
+ Built in diff file compare
+ Before you run the text replace on a file you can use the replace preview which will do the replace to a temp file and then use the diff compare so you can see what happened.
+ The included regular expression tester allows you to learn about regular expressions by trying out your expression on your supplied text.
+ You can save the search spec as a project for re-use.
You can read more here:
www.ajcsoft.com/grep-search-features.htm

2. This is version 2 of AJC Grep and we have concentrated our efforts on bringing the most demanded features over from version 1. The command line options are less used and will be done soon.

3. It uses the regex library in .Net which seems very similar to the unix one.

AJC Software - Oct 31 2017 at 4:43am Copy Link

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Nelson Carvalho This software is fantastic. I bought it a few years ago. For those who work in programming and need to search for 'lost' embedded code, there is no better software. AJC Grep has a range of very interesting and useful features. Support works.
I recommend.

Oct 31 2017 at 4:48am Copy Link

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Christian User When i activate "get this deal" I am redirected toward one page of French purchase of "AJC Sync Standard edition" !!!!
I am a French purchaser. Where is the problem ?

Thanks

Oct 31 2017 at 11:39am Copy Link

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Constantin Florea @Christian User, Apologies about the issue. It has been fixed. Please try again.

BitsDuJour Admin - Oct 31 2017 at 11:47am Copy Link

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Christian User Thanks Constantin.....

Oct 31 2017 at 12:06pm Copy Link

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Nelson Carvalho Fantastic software. Excellent support. I use it for research in software development with excellent results.

Dec 29 2017 at 5:57am Copy Link

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Faisal Humayun Will this work with pdf or ebook formats like epub, azw?

Dec 30 2017 at 12:57am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth It will work with pdf's but you will need to test it because pdf's come in many formats and some won't read. Epub and azw we have not looked into yet but if we can get a reader we might be able to add that in.

AJC Software - Dec 30 2017 at 4:32am Copy Link

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Martyn User Hi - I already use AJC Sync and its portability is the main attraction , is this GREP utility also portable?

Dec 30 2017 at 7:45am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth This version has to be installed. Sorry we don't have a portable version currently.

AJC Software - Dec 30 2017 at 9:04am Copy Link

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Stephen Warkentien What is "Phone License Activation?"

Dec 30 2017 at 10:12am Copy Link

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Faisal Humayun Thanks for the reply @Andrew Cutforth - relevant readers:
Epub : https://github.com/Sigil-.../tag/0.9.9
For just about all ebook formats https://calibre-ebook.com/download

Dec 30 2017 at 12:20pm Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth Sorry the "Phone License Activation" is a mistake so I will get it removed. After you purchase you will be sent a license key via email to activate the software.

AJC Software - Dec 30 2017 at 12:36pm Copy Link

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Great News! AJC Software has agreed to extend this deal for another day - Enjoy!

BitsDuJour Admin - Dec 31 2017 at 12:11am Copy Link

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Thomas User Stackoverflow notes that AJC Grep has filenames and paths limited to 255 characters (https://stackoverflow.com...32/4795779) and AJC Grep just stops it work if it encounters one - without any warning.
Is this limit still true?

Dec 31 2017 at 2:25am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth No that was an older version that was limited to 255 chars. This is a complete rewrite from that version and it can cope with very long path names (the same as AJC Sync and our other products). Also it is more robust and errors are noted on the report but it will carry on running.

AJC Software - Dec 31 2017 at 2:42am Copy Link

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Bradley MacDonald I have been using AJC Active Backup for years. It has been an excellent piece of software that has saved my bacon many times over. I have just purchased AJC Grep - and would recommend AJC and Andrew's tools to anyone with a computer!! Top quality author.

Dec 31 2017 at 8:52am Copy Link

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Martyn User I fully agree. I use AJC Sync and recently registered AJC Grep. AJC Backup will be next. This is first rate software, put together with care and attention to detail ????

Dec 31 2017 at 9:31am Copy Link

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bvssunnydale Hi, I went to site and this seems like a programming-oriented tool (not so much intended as a general office application). I couldn't find a list of what file types it works with (*.doc, *.rtf, *.txt, etc) so was wondering if this, specifically, is designed for programmers. Thanks.

Jun 19 2018 at 2:49am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth It is very useful for programmers and other types of users. It can search all types of files but if they are in a binary format and it cannot convert to text then it will show a binary viewer. It can convert Word, Excel and PDF documents to text though so you can search them as text.

AJC Software - Jun 19 2018 at 10:07am Copy Link

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Robert Thomson Hi, When it converts the file to text and you do search and replace does it then convert the back to the original file format?

Jun 21 2018 at 1:55am Copy Link

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Robert Crombie I always have Windows indexing turned off (I hate things running in the background).
Does this program required indexes ?
Does it create it's own index ?
(I can live with it creating it's own index, as long as I know where it is located, so I can ensure it is not too big)

Can it be told to never search certain folders EG -
- Windows
- Programs (or whatever it is called)
- Documents and Settings (A mineshaft dug by a rabid Wombat)

Rob

Jun 21 2018 at 2:35am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth If it has to convert a file to text then it cannot do the replace and you can only search.

It does not use any indexing, it is on the fly searching but it is fast.

Yes you can use lots of patterns to include/exclude files/folders. It can remember these for future searches but you can also save all the settings as a search project for future use.

AJC Software - Jun 21 2018 at 3:38am Copy Link

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Sara User 1) ATTENTION: MY FAULT: Just see my point 1 is my error, got mixed up on developer's site with AJC Active Backup. So there is just ONE version here, and which includes the FTP/web storage access. (((Description/"Features" list (tab) seems to be wrong. From original price, it's the standard version, whilst for FTP/web services (which are listed here) you'd need the prof. version (original price just 6$ higher but not available here, too). Deal breaker for me, but I stay very interested in buying later on (prof version then).)))

2) Between 2009 and 2017, stalled development (8 years), regular updates since, hopefully to be continued now! My question: Will we see a 2-pane layout very soon (within the free updates year), for tree view and list view?

With the current ribbon and 1-pane only design, functionality within ONE file is very good (see below), but switching to the next file within the tree and/or the list seems cumbersome (or is there a shortkey at least? but you wouldn't know which one is the next file then):

with mouse: go to tree-or-list-view tab, click; in that view: click on the next (or any other) file, which will then only display the edit pane, but which one: the previously-displayed one at least, or is it necessary to select the preferred view again by mouse within the ribbon? (matches/context/content tab, if not previous one automatically, matches probably being the default one, by clicking on a file in tree/list view?)

This is either cumbersome or even very cumbersome, depending on these questions. The natural way would be to have a tree/list in a left pane, where selecting a line (either double click or return, or better: just browsing by arrow up/dn) would then display the file in question in the currently-selected view (matches/context/content), within the right pane.

You could preserve all dedicated, 1-pane displays, though, even for tree/list, for better metadata display (as they are now), but smooth switching between files, by immediate tree/list access instead of hopping around within the ribbon tabs for that would be necessary as default.

3) The manual exclusion of specific (but unwanted) hits within the preview is outstanding (!) (ditto for exclusion of specific files, but the exclusion of specific hits is the real, incredibly useful highlight!) and allows for much easier, simpler regexes (matching then some unwanted phrases, too, but their manual exclusion then is often less cumbersome than writing the perfect regex instead, which would not match that unwanted bycatch).

But I hope the delete key would function as "exclude the currently selected hit from the list", so that no mouse click on the respective ribbon tab is necessary for each such exclusion?

4) I'm currently not certain about your batch(/"project") functionality (which is possible by the description, but not shown in any screenshot or otherwise explained), i.e. replacement of multiple strings within each file, together with the possibility of storing those batches for later use, in other sessions.

But I do such bulk replacements (where I know that they will not scramble my files) by script anyway, so this is not an important point for me personally:

If you (soon) introduce an additional 2-pane layout, and if the "exclude currently selected replacement from the list" is accessible by the delete key (which is probably even possible today, didn't trial), AJC (prof. version) becomes the PERFECT tool for regex file processing, all the more so since its visuals are very pleasant, which is an important factor especially in "half-automatic" file processing, i.e. whenever visual user control is indicated. 2-pane layout and 1-key deletion from the list, and AJC Grep will incredibly good for such recurring tasks!

Jun 21 2018 at 3:56am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth We can look at different views and more keyboard shortcuts in the future.

Yes the delete key will remove the current selected file/match from the list.

Saving the settings as a project allows you to easily set it up exactly the same again for future searches. This saves all of the options you have set into a project file but there is also a history for the individual boxes so you can recall them one at a time.

AJC Software - Jun 21 2018 at 10:31am Copy Link

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Sara User "We can look at different views and more keyboard shortcuts in the future." - from my experience with developers, that'd be a polite "no, not needed" - frankly, I had expected some acknowledgement of the need of quick and easy navigation between different files; we're speaking of a batch processor after all, so that'd be an important factor; even simple text editors today get quite negative user reviews if they aren't 2-pane optionally, coming with a file list/tree (or even a dedicated project management tool, i.e. a list/tree of manually gathered files from various sources/folders).

This being said, your "delete current hit from the set of the replacements to be made then" preview functionality is something very special indeed and a brilliant solution to a recurrent problem.

And then, the screenshot shows a hit list spreading over all files within the files list, so switching between lists isn't that much needed in many use cases.

Bought.

Jun 21 2018 at 1:31pm Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth If you are on the tree, list or matches view you can just cursor up and down between the files. If you are looking at the content view there are next/previous file buttons.

When you select a file/match and switch between views it will take you to the same file/match.

The idea is to switch between views to see the file/match in different contexts. The tree view for the big picture, the list view so you can sort by different columns, the match view to see the content matches, context view to see the matches in context and the content view so you see the whole file and edit it.

AJC Software - Jun 21 2018 at 1:40pm Copy Link

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Robert Crombie I am fairly sure that the general public are not as much in love with 'regular expressions' as your programmers are. And I am being polite.

Build in a Wizard that allows the common people (includes me) to graphically choose -
- where to look (drive or folders)
- which file extensions to look for (if user wishes to say limit search to .txt .doc etc)
- where NOT to look (excluded folders)
- what to look for (text within the files)

If you check out Ultrasearch (free I think), you can see where they have done what I am asking for with their "exclude filter".

Also you will see how blindingly fast it is.
UltraSearch does not maintain an index which is stored on your harddisk, but achieves its speed by working directly on the Master File Table (MFT) of the NTFS partitions

I was a senior analyst in large IT company for 20 years.
Don't fall for the mistakes that MS etc are doing, by allowing programmers to design programs. Hire some Analysts.

Jun 22 2018 at 1:08am Copy Link

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Sara User Some technical info (and @Robert Crombie):

Payment processor is Fastspring (see below) who pose as a reseller here: " This purchase and product fulfillment [whatever that means] are through FastSpring, a trusted reseller [!] for http : // www . ajcsoft . com".

The fine print: "Prices do not necessarily include taxes, which will vary by country." - with Fastspring though, unlike other payment processors, not only the taxes vary by country, but also the net prices, since, again unlike other payment processors, according to your country (which comes with your credit card, Paypal account, etc.) they do NOT allow you to pay the original indicated price ($), but force you to pay by your local currency, and then their exchange rate is at their sole discretion, so EU customers pay MUCH more (I've heard similar complains by Canadians, Australians...), even before taxes, which then come on top. So NO software developer should sell trough Fastspring, but by others (e.g. shareit) who allow the customer to pay in dollars (original price), instead of heaving to pay up to 30 or more per cent more, even before the additional taxes (another 25 p.c. or such, also on that Fastspring surcharge).

Then, "Support is provided for 12 months after your purchase.", so you should safely backup your dedicated licence file, too...

In that licence file, and in the "About" pane of the program (!), it's not only your name that appears (and which is more or less standard), but also your full adress, and I cannot remember any other program of mine (it's been much more than 100 over the years) which does that. What comes next? Blood type, ADN?

But it doesn't end there with the "About" pane; it says: "Run software created up to: 21-Jun-19", so for a moment, I even had the impression I had overlooked a part of the fine print saying "This software can be used for 1 year after purchase", which is not there, but this experience was a particularly unpleasant one, I then made a screenshot of the fine print incl. the url line and all just in case the program stops working though on June 21, 2019... instead of "Run software created up to", some "Updating included up to" would have been welcome.

For cheap (no pun intended) software, those Fastspring business ways are just a big nuisance; for software around or beyond 100$ original price, I simply refrain from buying, since incl. taxes and their supercharge, I'm not willing to spend 200$ for 100$ software, neither 2,000$ for some 1,000$ one.

@Robert: UltraSearch has nothing to do here, it's a competitor to the original "Everything"; both are free and incredibly helpful for file/folder searching by substrings in their filename; AJC Grep is a text manipulation tool, e.g. for programming (as stated by you), but also e.g. for data mining (web scraping) and similar tasks.

What you ask for, it does, regex is just on top of that (and you know that, obviously). At the end of the day, regex is just more precise, i.e. conditional search-replace:

While abc > abd will replace any occurrence of abc, but which is not helpful if most/many occurrences of abc should NOT be replaced, some regex "lookaround" (this is not original regex syntax) (ijk)abc(xyz) > (ijk)abd(xyz) will only replace abc if the sourroundings' conditions are also met, and it gets really interesting if those arent' some fixed ijk before and xyz behind, but if in those parentheses, you have multiple string variants, to be included or excludes, e.g. the string before may be ijk, but also i somethingelse but not ... then k, and so on: Instead of 50 or 500 specific replace runs (at which point in practice you'd end up the replaces by hand), you have just 1 run (ditto for your abc string which could have got many variants), and for not scrambling, i.e. destroying all your text body (by unwanted replacements), some preview becomes invaluable, and then excluding some unwanted hits your (not-perfect) regex would normally include, by visual checking, becomes even more handy, especially for non-specialists:

With such a tool with AJC Grep's special discard functionality they can write non-perfect regexes in some minutes, then visually check for some minutes, discarding the unwanted hits, instead of trying for hours to write the perfect regex; conversely, even a specialist can use this really useful program to check their elaborate regexes, in order to optimize them for later, recurring use on similar files (see the above non-programming use cases).

Many people don't get the usefulness of regex but much too late (or never) in their tries, for the simple fact that they defer looking into lookbehind and lookahead syntax until (much) later, while in fact it's simple and probably the most useful thing regex has to offer: as said, it's pure conditional, context-aware replacement (but that context to be left alone): exactly the thing you ask for (but which is included anyway, regex being optional) cannot deliver.

Jun 22 2018 at 2:29am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth You can turn off regular expressions if you don't need them.

Also there is the built in diff view so you can preview what a replace would do if you actually ran it. This will show you the file as it is now and then compare it to the file as it would be after running the replace.

AJC Software - Jun 22 2018 at 2:41am Copy Link

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Richard Blake On 10/31/17 you wrote "This is version 2 of AJC Grep and we have concentrated our efforts on bringing the most demanded features over from version 1. The command line options are less used and will be done soon."

I see no mention of command line capability on grep-search.htm, grep-search-features.htm or grep-search-versions.htm. What is the status, and where can I review the syntax?
(Please see also the Q I posted on the Active Backup BdJ page today.)
Thanks.

Mar 14 2019 at 9:35am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth AJC Grep v2 does not have many command line options yet but they have not been requested. If there is demand we will add some for you.

AJC Software - Mar 14 2019 at 1:59pm Copy Link

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Stephen Warkentien Can AJC Grep search and replace on Hex strings?

Mar 15 2019 at 9:42am Copy Link

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John User I provide tech support at a Community College and am frequently mobile. Can this discount be used for the portable version of AJC Grep?

Thanks,

John

Mar 15 2019 at 9:51am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth AJC Grep can replace when a binary file shows as the hex view but the replacement you enter still has to be characters - not hex

AJC Software - Mar 15 2019 at 11:16am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth There is no portable version of AJC Grep at the moment but we can look at creating one if there is demand.

AJC Software - Mar 15 2019 at 11:16am Copy Link

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Raymond I have been using this for many years and it has saved me many times!

This is an awesome tool with so much functionality and the creator/author is extremely helpful!!

I am not affiliated with the tool or company in any way other than being a very pleased user!

Keep up the GREAT work!!!!

Sep 17 2019 at 8:52am Copy Link

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Linton User @Raymond

Will this program allow me to search through text (notepad) files to find items that have an identical, duplicate hashstring listed next to each item in text file lists?

If so, then I'm definitely interested in this program.

Sep 17 2019 at 9:37am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth Yes you can certainly find hash strings in text files. When you say duplicate what are you comparing it to? Please try the trial version from our web site and see if it does what you want.

AJC Software - Sep 17 2019 at 9:54am Copy Link

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Neil What flavor is the regex syntax? As a Python programmer, I'd prefer the Python syntax...I have another tool that I like but it's syntax is more foreign to me (I think it's Perl based).

Sep 18 2019 at 7:41am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth It is the .Net regex so that is Perl 5 compatible

AJC Software - Sep 18 2019 at 10:56am Copy Link

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Sal I'm looking for a tool that will search a file for all numbers that are within a certain range of numbers and then replace those numbers with a word, the same word for all those numbers.
Can this do that?

Sep 19 2019 at 5:45am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth Regular expressions will match certain patterns of numbers. I suggest you contact support with more details to see if it is possible

AJC Software - Sep 19 2019 at 5:54am Copy Link

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lisba f I would like to see a feature searching PDF (ocr-ed of course).

May 8 2020 at 9:28am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth You can already search PDF's. They are converted to text first. It can't cope with all of them because some PDF's are very complicated. If you look in the options you can specify what file types are converted to text.

AJC Software - May 8 2020 at 10:16am Copy Link

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Al Kulich Hi, would this include installing as a portable app?

Jul 14 2020 at 3:19am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth It does not install as a portable app at the moment. We can look at doing this in the future.

AJC Software - Jul 14 2020 at 3:30am Copy Link

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lisba f Does it work with PDF files?

Jul 14 2020 at 3:38pm Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth Yes it works with PDF files but not 100% because they are complicated and contain different varying internal structures. You will need to try the trial version.

AJC Software - Jul 15 2020 at 12:28am Copy Link

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lisba f I had tried another time, so now it says 'trial period is expired'!

Jul 15 2020 at 3:32pm Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth If you contact AJC Software support you can get a temp license to try it again.

AJC Software - Jul 15 2020 at 3:57pm Copy Link

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bvssunnydale Hi, I'd just like to confirm that the software license is lifetime [ for whatever version is purchased ] and will still work after the first year (with the option to purchase upgrades, of course). The discussion is unclear so just checking. Thanks.

Nov 19 2020 at 9:57am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth Yes your license will allow you to use the software forever and it will allow you to download newer versions for one year and get support. After a year if you want newer versions or support then you can get an upgrade for another year for 60% discount.

AJC Software - Nov 19 2020 at 10:03am Copy Link

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HJ User Will this program search for, extract from or add to metadata of pdfs?

Nov 19 2020 at 10:12am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth It is an option (on by default) to attempt to convert PDF files to text so it can search them and extract data. PDF files are complicated so this does not always work. You will need to have a go with the trial version to see if it meets your needs.

AJC Software - Nov 19 2020 at 10:26am Copy Link

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Stephen Warkentien @HJ User

I use this program to change file name, title, author subject, etc. in bulk.

http://a-pdf.com/rename/

Nov 19 2020 at 1:17pm Copy Link

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Great News! AJC Software has agreed to extend this deal for another day - Enjoy!

BitsDuJour Admin - Nov 20 2020 at 12:11am Copy Link

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Jason Dear vendor,

When I uninstall your software it navigates to https://www.ajcsoft.com/g...nstall.php which gives 404.

I compared this software to GrepWin (free), I could not find any advantages, and for some reason on my system, the screen repaints were quite slow.

Nov 20 2020 at 4:19pm Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth The advantages are shown on this feature list here:
https://www.ajcsoft.com/g...atures.htm

AJC Software - Nov 21 2020 at 3:34am Copy Link

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Gary User when I run a search I get back "Failed to convert file to text" for several file types - pdf, word doc, rtf. What does that mean?

Dec 19 2021 at 5:56am Copy Link

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Andrew Cutforth This should not happen for Word documents (unless they are encrypted) so feel free to email a problem Word document to us to check. It could happen to .pdf's because they can't all easily be converted to text.

AJC Software - Dec 19 2021 at 6:24am Copy Link

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kydara Just a heads-up...my license key email wound up in my spam folder. Make sure you check yours before you complain that you didn't receive your key.

Dec 20 2021 at 7:54am Copy Link

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