Doxillion Free Document Converter

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on April 18, 2011

Doxillion Document Converter from NCH Software is a free tool for converting documents to and from the most commonly needed file formats. It can convert DOC, DOCX, HTML, PDF RTF, TXT, and WPD documents into DOC, DOCX, HTML, PDF, RTF, and TXT files, singly or in batches of thousands. It integrates with right-click menus in Explorer and also supports drag and drop. It can even attempt to repair corrupted documents as it converts them, potentially rescuing data. It's totally free and needs no other software to run, but it also integrates with NCH's other tools.

Doxillion is very easy to use, with a big green plus sign for adding files to the main list view. Highlighting entries in this list displayed their properties in the right-hand sidebar. We browsed to an output folder in the entry field beneath the main view, and then selected an output format and encoder options. All that was left to do was press Convert. Doxillion quickly processed our batch and saved the output to our selected directory. A button labeled Open output let us open the target folder directly from the interface (right next to the Convert button) which we found a very useful option, especially when saving documents to more than one destination. The toolbar icons let us remove files as well as add them, and also access the program's options. These cover Overwrite settings, Conversion formats and errors, Right-Click behavior, and choices like whether to play sounds. There's a good HTML-based Help file as well as buttons labeled Burn to Disc and Suite. Clicking Burn to Disc will download and install a disc-burning utility, while Suite opens the NCH Software Suite, a selection of the developer's titles.

We've tried many of NCH's tools and always found them to be good performers. Doxillion Document Converter is no exception. It may not convert a zillion document types, but it does a fine job with those file types that most people need most often.