File with mdi extension. How to open MDI file: which program to open and convert to other formats

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Use another program

If you cannot view the MDI file by double-clicking it, try opening it in a different program. Some of the most popular programs for opening MDI files are Borland Multiple Document Interface, MIDI sequention Sound, and Office Document Imaging File. Browse the developer websites, download one or more of these programs, then try opening the MDI file again.

Get a key from a file type

One file extension can be used for multiple file types. Knowing the type of file you have can help you figure out how to open it. Most MDI files are classified as Page Layout Files, which can be opened by numerous software packages. See if you have a program already installed on your computer to open Page Layout Files. Hopefully, this program might also work with your MDI file.

You can find out which type of file your MDI file is by looking at the file's properties. Right-click the file icon and select Properties or More Information. On a Windows computer, the file type will be listed in the File Type section; on a Mac, it will be under "Good".

Contact the developer

No one knows more about file extensions than software developers. If you can't open your MDI file using any of the usual programs, you can contact the program's software developer and ask them for help. Find your developer in the list below:

Software developer
Borland Multiple Document Interface Borland Software Corporation
MIDI sequention Sound Microsoft Developer
Office Document Imaging File Microsoft Corporation

Get a universal file viewer

When no other program will open your MDI file, universal file viewers like File Magic (Download) are here to save the day. These programs can open many different types of files, so if none of the tips above work, a universal file viewer is the way to go. Please note that some files are not compatible with universal file programs and can only be opened in binary format.

Scanned documents are often stored in mdi files. MDI is based on tiff, but surpasses it in quality and compression ratio. In addition to bitmap graphics, mdi can contain metadata such as recognized text. This format was used in Microsoft Office Document Imaging. At the moment the program is not supported and is excluded from the MIcrosoft Office suites. The creators did not publish the specification, so the format is closed and supported by a small number of programs.

What free programs can open mdi file?

  1. - Free utility for viewing mdi and some other popular image formats. The program has a nice and simple interface. On the left is the document page viewer, on the left, one page is displayed. Above is a menu in the form of pictures. The functionality is quite enough. MDI Viewer supports scaling, page rotation, image printing.
  2. Document Imaging - previously included in MS Office (up to 2010 version). Currently included in the free SharePoint package. The program works with .MID and .TIFF files. The utility consists of two applications - a viewing utility (DocumentImaging) and an image scanning utility (DocumentScanning). In addition to viewing, Document Imaging allows you to scan images, send them by fax, e-mail or send them to print.

Microsoft Document Imaging (or MDI for short) is used by a program in the main Windows package called Microsoft Office Document Imaging. The base is TIFF, but MDI has many advantages. For example, it not only provides better image quality, but also has a smaller file size. It is also worth mentioning that it is possible to save text along with images in both formats. However, you can edit MDI images only in the native program.

The program itself from the office suite has both advantages and disadvantages. The user-friendly interface allows you to increase the useful area of ​​the monitor screen and reduce clutter. Application windows can be shown, hidden, maximized, and minimized. Subsidiaries can be cascaded or tiled in the main window. It is also important to note the savings in memory and the increase in speed while working in one window. The program provides "hot button combinations" that allow you to use quick navigation, which makes working with the application even faster and more convenient, since it does not use additional resources.

It is rather difficult to display the content of multiple windows on different monitors, and it is also impossible to display the content on different virtual desktops. In addition, when working with the MDI format, than opening which, you already know, it is difficult to work in parallel with several applications at the same time, since it is rather inconvenient to switch between windows. And also some chaos in the program is noted if several windows are open at the same time.

It should be said that the "native" program is included only in the Office 2007 suite, in earlier versions the question arises again when the MDI format appears, than to open it. You won't be able to install Document Imaging on Windows XP either. In the event that you do not have a program from the Office 2007 office suite, or you do not want to spend money on it, the MDI Viewer can be useful to you.

However, even development from a package may not always open the MDI extension. To solve this problem, you need to do the following.

In the event that when you double-click on the MDI file in the program from the package does not open, and instead an error message appears on the desktop, you must follow the steps below. The reason for this failure is that the program is not installed when the MDI file is opened.

1. In the "Start" menu, select the line "Run", enter the command appwiz.cpl, then click on "OK".

2. In the list of installed programs, select the version of Office 2007 installed on your computer.

3. Select the "Change" button.

4. Select the item "Add components", then click on "Continue".

5. You must expand the Office Tools node.

6. Here we select Microsoft Office Document Imaging, set the value for the "Run all" program.

7. Click on the "Continue" button.

These steps should help you solve the problem with the MDI format rather than open it.

In addition, the file can be exported to tiff format using the MDI Viewer, which you can download for free. So, having seen the MDI format, you know how to open it: either by a program from the Office 2007 suite, or by using the MDI Viewer. This is a fairly simple development, although a little inconvenient compared to the Office program, which allows you to view MDI files, as well as print, export to TIFF, scale the picture in height and width, and rotate by 90̊ °.

With the development of computer technologies, the development of new programs and more advanced operating systems, more and more new ones appear. And it is not always very easy to open and edit them. Many of the updated data formats that have been developed since the 2007 Office operating system cannot be opened with the standard software package on later operating systems. Sometimes you even have to use online convectors to convert After all, not everyone today can install the latest operating system. Hopefully, now that you see an MDI file, you will know for sure how to open it.

Is there a problem with the MDI file? If you're unsure of how to open a MDI file, or if your file won't open with MS Office Document Imaging, our article is just for you. We will consider what the files of the specified format are, the main reasons why they do not open, what additional free utilities exist for converting MDI to other formats.

What is MDI file format

MDI (short for Microsoft Document Imaging Format) is a file format developed, as you might have guessed, by Microsoft for storing bitmap images of scanned documents. Additionally, in files of this format, it is possible to store metadata (text annotations, recognized text, etc.). The format is closed - there are no publicly available specifications.

The MDI file format is a "modified" MS TIFF format. In MDI, there are three types of data compression developed by MS, a large number of additional fields and non-standard key values, as well as some other minor fixes.

Due to these additions, as a result, MDI received noticeable advantages - a smaller file size during storage with a higher quality image.

Opening MDI Using Native Programs

The main problem when trying to open an MDI file with "native" MS Office Document Imaging from Office 2007 is that when you double-click on the file in Explorer, it will not open. In this case, you will see a standard error window - "Failed to open the next file ...". Why is this happening? The reason is simple - the Document Imaging utility must be installed on your own; installation on demand when trying to open an MDI file is not provided.

In Office 2010, this utility is no longer available - apparently, its support is not expected in future versions.

Thus, you need to install MS Office Document Imaging. To do this, you need to follow the listed simple steps:

  1. Open the list of installed programs. You can open it either through Start - Control Panel - Programs and Features, or using the appwiz.cpl command - enter it in the Start - Run window;
  2. In the list that opens, you need to find and select the installed version of MS Office 2007;
  3. Press the "Change" button;
  4. In the appeared wizard, select the item "Add or remove components";
  5. In the window for selecting components, in the "Office Tools" node, select MS Office Document Imaging (for installation, you must specify "Run everything from my computer");
  6. Click the "Continue" button and wait for the installation to complete.

After these simple steps, you can try to open the desired MDI file again.

Opening and converting MDI with third-party programs

In case you do not use the MS office suite, or you need to open the MDI file, and the version of the 2010 package lacks the required utility (MSPVIEW.EXE), we will consider several utilities from third-party manufacturers that allow you to work with the format in question.

Free MDI Image Viewer - a free utility to open MDI files for reading

To view files with the MDI extension in read mode, the free utility Free MDI Image Viewer is suitable. It also allows you to export individual pages from an MDI file to images.

For Windows, there is also a small command line utility. This is MS MDI to TIFF File Converter. As the name suggests, it allows MDI to TIFF format.

And finally, the third utility allows you to convert MDI to PDF - it is called MDI2PDF.

How to open and convert MDI for Linux and Mac

For those using a non-Windows operating system, the following options will work. MDI2PDF and Free MDI Image Viewer, which are run with Wine (emulator for).

Mac owners can use the official program - Microsoft Office Document Imaging works under this OS.

In any OS, you can use the online service Kinati 2PDF Converter, which allows you to convert.

So, we have considered the main problems that can arise when trying to open an MDI extension, what third-party utilities can be used to open and convert under Windows, Linux and Mac. We hope that after reading our article, you will definitely imagine how it will be better to open the mdi file in each specific case.

We have three existing softwares associated with MDI files (typically software from Microsoft Corporation known as Microsoft Office), and they can be categorized as two main file types. Traditionally, these files are in the format Microsoft Document Imaging File... The MDI file extension is listed primarily in the category Page Layout Files... In less common applications, they can also refer to Audio Files.

The MDI file extension is supported by Windows and Mac. These file types can be found mainly on desktop computers and some mobile devices. The popularity rating of MDI files is Low, which means that these files are rare.

Keep in mind, however, that there is a lot more information to know about MDI files; the following are just important details regarding these file types. If you are having trouble opening these files, or would like more information, please see the details below.

Popularity of file types
File Rank

Activity

This file type is still relevant and is actively used by developers and application software. Although the original software of this file type may be overshadowed by a newer version (eg Excel 97 versus Office 365), this file type is still actively supported by the current version of the software. This process of interacting with an old operating system or an outdated version of software is also known as “ backward compatibility».

File status
Page Last updated


MDI file types

Association of the main MDI file

High quality, tag-based graphic format developed from the TIFF format. Used by Microsoft Office to save scanned documents. They can be converted to a DOC (word) document using optical character recognition (OCR) software.


Associations of other MDI files

Try a universal file viewer

In addition to the products listed above, we suggest you try a universal file viewer like FileViewPro. The tool can open over 200 different types of files, providing editing functions for most of them.

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Troubleshoot opening MDI files

Common problems opening MDI files

Microsoft Office is not installed

By double clicking on the MDI file, you can see a system dialog that says "This file type cannot be opened"... In this case, this is usually due to the fact that Microsoft Office for %% os %% is not installed on your computer... Since your operating system does not know what to do with this file, you cannot open it by double clicking on it.


Advice: If you know of another program that can open your MDI file, you can try opening that file by selecting that application from the list of available programs.

The wrong version of Microsoft Office is installed

In some cases, you may have a newer (or older) version of the Microsoft Document Imaging File, not supported by the installed version of the application... If you do not have the correct version of Microsoft Office software (or any of the other programs listed above), you may need to download a different version of the software or one of the other application software listed above. This problem most often occurs when working in an older version of the application software with a file created in a newer version which the old version cannot recognize.


Advice: Sometimes you can get a general idea of ​​the version of an MDI file by right-clicking on the file and then choosing Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Mac OSX).


Summary: In any case, most of the problems that arise when opening MDI files are due to the fact that the correct application software is not installed on your computer.

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Other causes of problems opening MDI files

Even if Microsoft Office or other MDI-related software is already installed on your computer, you may still experience issues while opening Microsoft Document Imaging File files. If you still have problems opening MDI files, the problem may be related to other problems preventing these files from being opened... Such problems include (presented in order from most to least common):

  • Invalid MDI File References in the Windows registry ("phone book" of the Windows operating system)
  • Accidental deletion of a description MDI file in the Windows registry
  • Incomplete or incorrect installation application software associated with the MDI format
  • File corruption MDI (problems with the Microsoft Document Imaging File itself)
  • MDI infection malware
  • Damaged or outdated device drivers hardware associated with the MDI file
  • Lack of sufficient system resources on the computer to open Microsoft Document Imaging File format

Quiz: What file extension was created by Adobe Corporation in 1992?

Right!

Close, but not quite ...

PDF, or Portable Document Format, was first mentioned by Adobe at the Seybold conference in San Jose in 1991. Version 1.0 was not announced until the following year at the autumn COMDEX conference, where it was awarded the "Best of Comdex."


The best Windows operating systems

7 (45.73%)
10 (44.56%)
8.1 (5.41%)
XP (2.79%)
8 (0.97%)

Event of the day

MP4 is an abbreviation for MPEG-4 video and it is one of the most widely used video formats. MP4 first hit the scene in 1998 when it was created by the Moving Picture Experts Group (hence the acronym). MP4 is an ever-evolving audio-video format.



How to fix problems opening MDI files

If there is a computer installed antivirus software can scan all files on the computer, as well as each file separately... You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.

For example, in this figure, file my-file.mdi, then you need to right-click on this file, and select the option from the file menu "Scan with AVG"... Selecting this option will open AVG Antivirus, which will scan this file for viruses.


Sometimes an error can result from incorrect software installation, which may be due to a problem encountered during the installation process. It may interfere with your operating system associate your MDI file with the correct application software influencing the so-called "File extension associations".

Sometimes simple reinstalling Microsoft Office might fix your problem by linking MDI with Microsoft Office correctly. In other cases, problems with file associations can result from poor software programming developer and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.


Advice: Try updating Microsoft Office to the latest version to make sure the latest patches and updates are installed.


It may seem too obvious, but often the MDI file itself may be causing the problem... If you received a file via an email attachment or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (for example, a power outage or other reason), the file may be damaged... If possible, try to obtain a fresh copy of the MDI file and try opening it again.


Carefully: A damaged file can cause collateral damage to previous or pre-existing malware on your PC, so it is very important that you have an updated antivirus running on your PC at all times.


If your MDI file related to the hardware on your computer to open the file you may need update device drivers related to this equipment.

This problem usually associated with types of media files that depend on the successful opening of the hardware inside the computer, for example, sound card or video card... For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.


Advice: If, when you try to open an MDI file, you get SYS file related error message, the problem could probably be related to damaged or outdated device drivers that need to be updated. This process can be facilitated by using driver update software such as DriverDoc.


If the steps did not solve the problem and you're still having problems opening MDI files, it might be related to lack of available system resources... Some versions of MDI files may require a significant amount of resources (e.g. memory / RAM, processing power) to open properly on your computer. This problem occurs quite often if you are using fairly old computer hardware and at the same time a much newer operating system.

This issue can occur when the computer has a hard time completing a task, as the operating system (and other services running in the background) can consume too many resources to open MDI file... Try closing all applications on your PC before opening Microsoft Document Imaging File. By freeing up all the available resources on your computer, you will provide a better environment for trying to open the MDI file.


If you completed all the steps above and your MDI file still won't open, you might need to do equipment upgrade... In most cases, even with older hardware versions, the processing power may still be more than adequate for most custom applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work like 3D rendering, financial / scientific modeling, or heavy multimedia work) ... Thus, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(more commonly referred to as "RAM", or random access memory) to perform the task of opening a file.

Try to upgrade your memory to see if it helps open your MDI file. Nowadays, memory upgrades are quite affordable and very easy to install, even for the average computer user. As a bonus you you will probably see a nice performance boost while your computer is performing other tasks.


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