# converting mp3 files to txt format



## Jko

does anyone know what software program to use to convert my mp3 files to "txt" format, or basically compress a 4MB file in a less than 1MB file?


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## JohnWill

Does not compute. MP3 files are compressed audio, there is no option to "convert" them to a text file. There is no program to do what you ask.


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## Jko

oh really? hum...let me give you an example of what im talking about:

http://uploadhut.com/view.php/66533.doc

thats a music file to put on webpages but i dont know how they did it converting their music files to "doc or txt" format...i'm just want to know so i can save bandwidth.
does anyone in here know how to?


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## dannyboyfx

you just compress the .mp3 file and rename it as a .doc file, then, the person that downloads it renames it again. gooogle: ".mp3 to .doc" convert


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## JohnWill

My point is that you can't compress MP3 files, they're already compressed! You can convert it to text with a UUENCODE or MIME conversion, but it'll be BIGGER than the original MP3 file, not smaller.

There is no way to compress an MP3 file to any degree and maintain the same quality of sound reproduction.

Jko, The file reference you provided was simply a low bit rate WMA file renamed as a DOC file, it had nothing to do with MP3, and there was no magic involved.


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## lunchbox

Ok so say hypothetically you were to convert an mp3 to text and then it becomes bigger right?

From memory the compression ratio on text is phenomenal when using archives. Would the end result of the compressed file be smaller than the mp3 itself?


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## JohnWill

There is no magic here. The only reason that compression on normal text is good is because of the repetitive nature of common text, only a fraction of the total binary values are used, and some are used much more often. However, when you encode binary information into text, using something UUENCODE or MIME, the bytes are random again, and further compression isn't possible.

There is no clever way to take a fully compressed ZIP/RAR/MP3/JPG file and convert it to text to get more compression.


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## chasmann8

So if there is no way to turn mp3 into a text file, is there a way to convert a wave to text? I know of a program called "wave to text," but does anybody know about another way to convert wave to text. I'm not saying it has to be a wave file to text. Any type of audio file conversion to text is fine. Thanks


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## DoubleHelix

The program Wave To Text does not convert an audio file into a text file. It converts speech into text. It's speech recognition / dictation software. It's the equivalent of converting an MP3 song file into a TXT file by typing the lyrics of the song into a text file.


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## JohnWill

Let me repeat, there is NO way to significantly compress an MP3 file and not lose quality in the process, it's really that simple.

You could encode the sound using some other process that might have better compression, but it won't involve the MP3 file.


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## ChuckE

I don't know what you think was done to "convert" this music file to "text" or a ".doc" file, but as far as I can tell, it looks like it was only renamed.

I can't tell exactly what it was prior to being named ".doc" but Windows Media Player plays it just fine if you name it with the extension ".asf" or ".asx" (perhaps others as well).

Renaming a file does not change the fact that it is a music file.

And if anybody else out there is curious, it appears that this song (if you can call rap a song - but that can be debated on other fourums, not here please) called "I'm a hustlar mx" (?).


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## Rockn

Is this alchemy 101? I would like to change some lead into gold please, can someone do that for me?


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## lunchbox

Rockn said:


> Is this alchemy 101? I would like to change some lead into gold please, can someone do that for me?


hahahaha smart ***.

All you need to do is ensure that you can see known file extensions. (So when looking at an mp3 file called tim you see the full name as tim.mp3) delete the mp3 extension and write in txt

Thats it.


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## brendandonhu

You can change the name as much as you want, its still not a text file. To change an MP3 into a text format, you can use uuencode or play around with MIME types, but its not going to magically turn 4 megs of data into 1 meg. MP3 is already compressed (lossy) to start with.


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## JohnWill

I think we've made three complete circles now.


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## Couriant

One thing I noticed about the DOC file in the link is that the mp3 it becomes is still the same size. The difference is that the quality is that of a wave file... (23Kbps bitrate). WMP didnt even *recognise* the file, but still worked. What gets me that it was changed to a DOC in the first place... maybe the site doesn't allow MP3s to be uploaded for legal reasons....

In short, you can rename the file, but it will not change the file size. Also there is no program that can you can use that will compress an MP3 because its already compressed itself. Any problem with that, take it up with Bill.


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## McLachy

simply open it in a program like Notepad and just save it as a .txt file, its as simple as that.


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## Alan18

How 'bout you try that and tell us what happens?

Alan


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## Couriant

McLachy said:


> simply open it in a program like Notepad and just save it as a .txt file, its as simple as that.


I can tell you what happens. Garbage comes up.


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## ChuckE

Not just garbage, but if you open that song file with Notepad, and then save it as .txt, you will force it to lose a few binary bytes that Notepad just can't handle properly. So the file is changed.

Once it has been changed, in that manner, you can not simply rename the .txt to .<whatever music file extension that used to work with the unmodified file> the file will no longer work.

DON'T DO IT.


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## Alan18

Tidus4Yuna said:


> I can tell you what happens. Garbage comes up.


It was more of a sarcastic comment.

Alan


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## edbro9

I converted some of my music to text. Now, I can just read them in bed without waking the kids.


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## Alan18

You mean you got the lyrics.

Alan


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## edbro9

Alan18 said:


> You mean you got the lyrics.
> 
> Alan


No, I mean I'm a smart alec! It was a bad joke.


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## Alan18

Good, I figured someone was in the sun to long.

Alan


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## HenryVI

JohnWill said:


> I think we've made three complete circles now.


Now like 4 or 5...


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## ChuckE

Or you could run the MP3 file through a distiller and convert them to rum, and drink them before you go to bed.  
Sweet dreams!


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