When you open and save files in a program like Microsoft Word, you are presented with a long list of available formats that the program will open and to which you can save files. The list can be large, depending on the formats the program can handle. This may make it difficult to find the format for which you are actually looking.

Formats Customizer is a free tool that allows you to remove document types that you don’t need in the list of file types available for opening/importing and saving/exporting in a program.

As of the writing of this post, Formats Customizer supports the following programs:

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • CorelDRAW
  • Corel PHOTO-PAINT
  • QuarkXPress
  • Microsoft Office Word
  • Microsoft Office Excel
  • Microsoft Office Power Point
  • Microsoft Paint

Download Formats Customizer from http://www.formatscustomizer.com/download.html.

Once Formats Customizer is installed, you will see an FC icon in the system tray.

Formats Customizer icon in system tray

Right-click on the FC icon to display the pop-up menu. To set up the available formats for an application, select Customize formats from the menu.

Formats Customizer pop-up menu

The Formats Customizer dialog box displays. Select an application for which you want to customize the file formats from the Application drop-down list. Note that clicking the New button takes you to the Formats Customizer website and presents you with an email address for making requests for adding applications to the list.

Selecting an application

Once you select an application, a message displays on each side of the dialog box. To display the list of currently available Input document types for the selected program you must open the program and select either the Open command or the Import command.

Input document types

You must do the same thing for the Output document types. You must select either the Save As command or the Export command in the selected application.

Output document types

The available input and output document types for the selected application are listed on either side of the dialog box. To disable the types you will not use, uncheck the check boxes for those types. Click Apply to apply the changes, and click OK to close Formats Customizer.

Applying changes

The next time you access the Open/Import or Save/Export commands in the application for which you applied changes, there are less file types available.

Open dialog box in Word

If you want to have access to all the file types but preserve your settings, right-click on the FC icon in the system tray and select Enable filtering from the pop-up menu. The FC icon becomes an F icon. To use your settings again, simply select Enable filtering from the pop-up menu to turn it back on.

Enable filtering option

You can also clear your settings quickly using the Clear button. To quickly clear both sides of the dialog box, click the Clear button. If you only want to clear the left or the right side, click the arrow on the Clear button and select the desired side.

09_clear_settings

This is a very useful tool, especially for programs that have long lists of file types. Be sure to let them know about any programs you want them to add at http://www.formatscustomizer.com/futururequest.html.

by Lori Kaufman