Text Replacer

Having to process large quantities of text files on a daily basis can be a pain, especially if most effort narrows down to replacing particular strings. Luckily, the solution comes in the form of a lightweight application like Text Replacer which is capable of reading different types of text files and almost instantly replacing text strings you specify with new entries.

One of the main advantages is the lack of an installer. As such, it’s easy to carry it around on a thumb drive in case you need to work on other computers besides your own. No traces are left on the target PC because registry entries are not modified to ensure functionality.

The visual design is intuitive enough, even though it’s fitted with classic window elements and frame. All functions and components are in plain sight, such as the navigator for easy selection of the directory to scan, as well as the search and replace functions found in individual panels.

Note that you don’t get to point towards particular files, and the application scans the selected directory and all of its subfolders. File support is not specified, but it can properly search and replace inside documents like RTF, TXT, as well as HTML, which comes as a major advantage. It would have been useful to be able to select only particular formats, or apply filters.

For the core feature to work, both text pads need to be filled in with the text to identify, as well as the replace string. There’s the possibility to match casing so no errors occur in the process. The task is done almost instantly, with a progress slider to let you know when it’s done, as well as a file counter to know how many files got processed. However, the target directory isn’t brought up when done, and there’s no list of modified files to review either.

In conclusion, Text Replacer is a straightforward tool dedicated to the purpose of finding all specified strings in text documents and replacing them on the spot with your input. File support is an advantage, especially because of HTML, while portability allows it to be used on the go with little effort.