Free online AD to TXT converter

Some older Unix and X Window System programs store application settings in .ad files, while editors, scripts, and document systems commonly expect .txt. Because this AD variant is already plain text, conversion normally means exporting or copying the content without changing its characters.

What the AD format is

In the Text files category, AD generally refers to an X Window System application-defaults resource file. It contains readable configuration entries that control widget properties such as fonts, colors, labels, geometry, and keyboard behavior for X Toolkit applications.

These files are created or edited by Unix and Linux administrators, application developers, and users configuring legacy graphical software. Common locations include /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/, /etc/X11/app-defaults/, and user configuration directories. An AD file may contain lines such as Application*font: fixed or comment lines beginning with !.

What the TXT format is

TXT is a generic plain-text format with no required application-specific structure. It is suitable for source inspection, scripting, archiving, email attachments, and opening in editors on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

TXT does not preserve visual formatting, application metadata, or a special resource-file association. Its main compatibility advantage is that nearly any text editor or command-line tool can read it.

How to actually convert AD to TXT

Using a text editor

1. Open the AD file in a plain-text editor such as Notepad, Notepad++, TextEdit in plain-text mode, Vim, or GNU nano. Do not use a word processor that may insert rich formatting.
2. Choose File → Save As.
3. Set the filename extension to .txt, select UTF-8 if the editor offers an encoding option, and disable automatic rich-text formatting.
4. Save the file, then reopen the resulting TXT file to verify that comments, resource names, colons, punctuation, and line breaks remain intact.

Using the command line

On macOS or Linux, copying the file with a new extension preserves its bytes:

cp settings.ad settings.txt

To convert line endings for a Windows-oriented workflow, use:

unix2dos settings.ad settings.txt

On Windows PowerShell, use:

Copy-Item .\settings.ad .\settings.txt

If you prefer the built-in converter on this website, upload the AD file, choose TXT as the output format, and download the result; no software installation is required.

Quality and compatibility limits

Renaming or copying is usually the most faithful method because AD resource files are already plain text. A true re-encoding is only needed when the source uses an incompatible character set; X resource files are often interpreted as locale-dependent text rather than as universally encoded UTF-8.

Changing the extension to TXT does not make the file usable as an X application-defaults file under its new name. If the file must still be loaded by an X application, keep the original .ad file or restore the expected filename after editing. TXT output also cannot represent settings that depend on the original file path, application name, resource database precedence, or locale.