Table of Contents


22. NeoFinder and Text Files

When cataloging text files, NeoFinder can create an excerpt of the file contents for you. Turn this on in the Cataloging Preferences:



NeoFinder, by default, will read only the first 256 characters of the text (see below how to change that).

This excerpt is displayed in the Inspector section, and can be copied to the clipboard from there, or from the Copy section of the context menu for an item.




You can
increase that number with a hidden setting (see below), but we suggest to carefully considering that, as this may exceed the old 4 GB file size limit of one single NeoFinder catalog file (remember that NeoFinder generates one separate catalog database file for each disk or folder you catalog!). If you only use the “Extended” catalog format, this limit no longer applies.

Of course, when searching for "Any Text," these text excerpts are processed by NeoFinder, too.

Supported file types are: .doc (Microsoft Word), .docx (Microsoft Word), .txt, .rtf
(rich text format), .rtfd (rich text format bundles from Apple), .textClipping, .srt (video subtitles text files), .nfo and .md (Markdown text)

Open Office text files ('.odt' and '.ott') are supported.

Also, files named "read.me" are recognized as well.

Further, all files of types .url, .webloc, and .mailloc are cataloged completely as well, revealing the web address in the Inspector.

Even the
textual content of PDF files can be recognised (if the PDF actually contains any, and NeoFinder only reads the text of the first page for performance reasons)

And last, NeoFinder also gets you an excerpt of
HTML files now!

Metadata files created by iTunes Producer, named "metadata.xml" are now cataloged as well. NeoFinder will create a section of the most important elements first, and then add the entire XML content after that:

iTunes Producer metadata



Getting weird error messages regarding fonts?
If you catalog the content of RTF (rich text format) files, you may see weird error messages about missing fonts.
That is a long standing bug in macOS, where it thinks these exotic fonts were used in the RTF, when they obviously are not.
Most unfortunately, as this is done by macOS itself, there is nothing we can do to prevent that.
Even more unfortunately, Apple has completely ignored our bug reports about this issue, and suggestions for a better software API to prevent that.
To solve this issue, you must download the fonts from the Apple server for once, and then the messages will go away.
And please file a bug report with Apple, maybe, just maybe, they for once fix this bug.



Read more than 256 characters from a text file
You can ask NeoFinder to increase that number.

Open Terminal.app (in the Utilities folder of Applications), and paste in this line here. Replace val with the numeric value you want. Then hit return.

defaults write de.wfs-apps.neofinder numBytesForTextFiles val

Proceed with caution here, as any larger number may increase the catalog files size for a volume too much, hitting the 4 GB border.

With 256, you return to the default and very safe value.



There is more!

NeoFinder can index your emails for you!
21.1. NeoFinder and Emails

And ePub electronic books:
21.2 NeoFinder and ePub files