Outlook Alternative: Viewing MS Outlook .PST Files With Pst Viewer Pro

With the update of Outlook 2013, Microsoft has reaffirmed it's commitment to Outlook as an important part of the Office suite, launching into the touch world of Windows 8.  I've been a user since 2000, and over the years have accumulated a large collection of .pst and .msg email files that contain an important business and relationship history.  Pst files are the Outlook database files that store all of your email messages, calendar items, file attachments, contacts, etc., and they can get quite large.   I also have Windows folders filled with .msg and .eml files; these are individual email messages that have been saved outside of Outlook.

Pst Viewer Pro is a tool that can augment my relationship to MS Outlook. It provides a flexible capability to view email stored in my older Outlook pst, .ost, .msg or .eml files.

Use the folder navigation on the left side of Pst Viewer Pro to select the location of your .pst or .msg files.  Pst Viewer Pro can read an entire directory of thousands of individual .msg files, or if can open a single .pst  or .ost file and display all of the emails inside.  To select a .pst file, click on it. This will cause the emails to be displayed in the mail list.

Click on any email in the mail list that you would like to view, and it will be displayed in the viewing pane. Messages are rendered in full html, rich text or text formatting, with hyperlinks active.  If you double click on an email in the list, it will be displayed in a separate window that supports full screen viewing.  You can have multiple emails open in this manner.

Pst Viewer Pro's toolbar provides quick access to often used functions, including export functions, including the capability to export selected emails to PDF and other formats.

Pst Viewer Pro Tool Bar

To export emails to pdf, first search the .pst file to find the email messages you want to convert to .pdf.
Next, select the email messages from the mail list.  To select all emails in the list, type Ctrol-A on your Windows keyboard.
Finally, select the desired export profile from the drop down list and then click the start button. An animated image below will demonstrate the entire process of searching, selecting, and exporting.

Search a pst file and export emails to .pdf

Pst Viewer Pro is a multi-functional email viewer that supports .pst, .msg, .eml and .ost files. You can search for emails, view them in the viewing pane, and even export emails to .pdf,  and other formats.  Pst Viewer Pro helps manage your email content.  Download a trial today and enjoy Pst Viewer Pro free for 15 days.

Converting .Pst Files To .PDF From Windows Command Line

Pst Viewer Pro is a flexible tool that can help you search, view and convert your email messages.  Source email formats supported include Outlook .pst and .ost files, .msg email messages, and RFC-822 formatted .eml files.   When working with Outlook messages, it is not necessary to have Outlook or MAPI installed on the computer; Pst Viewer Pro works independently of Outlook.

Pst Viewer Pro is a Windows email viewer that virtually anyone can install and operate through the normal Windows GUI point-and-click interface. Although most Pst Viewer Pro users will never use this specialized functionality, it adds a tremendous amount of value for those who need it, and it is included at no extra cost with each license.

Every copy of Pst Viewer Pro also includes a command line tool called PstViewerConsole.exe. This tool extends the capabilities of the software to the Windows command line. It can be implemented from a DOS batch file, and parameters and email files can be passed directly to PstViewer Console.

There are several options that may be specified. Two of the most commonly used are -p for Print, -e for Export. Let's examine each one briefly.

Configuring Export Profiles for Email Conversion

When calling Pstviewerconsole.exe from the Windows DOS prompt, the command format is:
Usage: PSTViewerConsole.exe [options] [<file1> [<file2> ...]]

Command Usage

-p, --print
This function will print the specified message to the specified printer.
Usage: PSTViewerConsole.exe --print <file[s]>

-e, --export
Export messages with predefined profile.
Usage: PSTViewerConsole.exe --export <profile name> [--outputdir <folder>] <file[s]>

The command line may include the name of any of Pst Viewer Pro's export profiles. For example, to export messages to .PDF format using the  Pst Viewer Pro profile titled "PDF - attachments converted/included," here is how your PstViewerConsole command line would be setup:

"C:\Program Files\Encryptomatic, LLC\PSTViewer Pro\PSTViewerConsole.exe" --e "PDF - attachments converted/included" "C:\your_file.msg"

In the this example, PstViewerConsole would load the profile "PDF-attchments converted/included," and convert the email inside a .pst file into individual .pdf files.

You can easily make changes to any of the export profile settings within Pst Viewer Pro. Any changes will carry through when the profiles are called using PstViewerConsole.exe.

Changes to Pst Viewer Pro's Export Profiles are best accomplished by starting the GUI version of Pst Viewer Pro, selecting the profile you want to change from the drop down list, and then clicking the "Edit Profile" button.

Edit Email Export Profile Settings

After clicking the Edit Profile button, you'll see the Export Profile Editor window. From here, you can edit any setting relating to the profile.  For example, with the "PDF -attachments converted/included" profile, you can specify the page size of the .pdf files, the orientation of the page, how to handle email file attachments, where the messages should be saved, and much more. Any changes made to this profile when it is called by PstViewerConsole.exe from the Windows command line.

Export Profile Editor

For more detail on using PstViewerConsole.exe, please consult the Help file from Pst Viewer Pro. You'll find all the command line parameters documented, and sample command line constructs for accomplishing different tasks.

Pst Viewer Pro Command Line Parameters Are Discussed In the Help File

We hope this article helps get you started using Pstviewerconsole. You can always reach the Pst Viewer Pro support team with specific questions. 

Opening Outlook .PST And .OST Files Without Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is the leading email client software for good reason. It's long been the gold standard when it comes to organizing personal information such as email, calendars, contacts, notes and more.  

Outlook can be used as a stand-alone email application, or it can be configured to work with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server in a business organization. When Outlook is configured as a standalone application, it will save email messages as .pst files.  In an Exchange Server environment, an .ost file is stored locally and synched to a.pst file will remain on the Exchange server.

If you have accumulated ost or pst files from your work environments, you may find it difficult to access the email messages stored in these files once you remove them from your original work environment. While you could buy Outlook to open the .pst files, you may find that some of the information in the file that was associated with your Exchange profile is no longer accessible.  

Pst Viewer Pro is a Windows app that makes opening and searching .pst or .ost files a simple task.  Despite it's name, Pst Viewer Pro can open both .pst and .ost files, as well email messages in .eml, .msg, .mht and winmail.dat files, making it a useful multi-format email viewer and a nice tool to have in your Windows software toolkit.

Pst Viewer Pro 

Searching for email files with Pst Viewer Pro can be done two ways. The easiest way is to just type a phrase in the search box along the top toolbar. Alternatively, you can perform a more detailed search by clicking the Search button from the toolbar, and going to the Advanced Search window where you can enter in specific search criteria and specify which fields to search across.

Pst Viewer Pro Toolbar

When you find the email messages you're searching or, Pst Viewer Pro will let you export them to different formats, such as .pdf, Excel .csv, .eml, .gif, .tif, .bmp, .png, and others.  Exporting email is done from the main toolbar, by selecting the format from a dropdown window and then clicking the Export button.

Exporting an email using Pst Viewer Pro

Pst Viewer Pro can also open password protected .pst and .ost files, even if you have forgotten the password. This is done by simply opening the .pst file. If it detects password protection, it will bypass it automatically.

Pst files can get very large. Some are upwards of 20 GB. If you are running a 64-bit Windows operating system, then the Pst Viewer Pro installer will automatically install the 64-bit version of the software that is able to make use of higher amounts of memory. Tests have shown that this improves search and export operations dramatically. There no extra cost for the 64-bit version of Pst Viewer Pro.

If you're not sure that Pst Viewer Pro will be able to open your .pst or .ost files, download the two week free trial and test it out.  Encryptomatic LLC will also refund your purchase price if you are dissatisfied after purchase.

If you need to move Pst Viewer Pro to a different computer, you can do that. Just uninstall it on computer one, and the key will be reset that you can re-install on computer two.

For more information about  purchasing Pst Viewer Pro, or to download a free trial, click here to visit the product home page.

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Converting Email To PDF/A (ISO 190005-1) For Email Archiving

By Darren Leno
 

You don't have to wait very long for technology to change these days.  The relentless march of technology has created a major challenge for the professionals charged with preserving and archiving digital content. How can they "future proof" electronic documents for the future so they can be viewed and on devices and platforms that don't even exist yet?  Without some kind of standard for preserving documents, they could easily be lost or altered during platform transitions.  This is as true for email messages as it is for any other kind of electronic document.

Fortunately, an international standard for the long term archiving and storage of documents exists in the form of an international standard called ISO 19005-1, also known as PDF/A. The goal of PDF/A is to preserve the appearance of a file so that it can be rendered accurately in the future.

The general goals of PDF/A are device independence, so that the electronic information can be rendered across different hardware or software platforms.  The file should also be self-contained so that all information necessary to render the file exists within the document. The standard must be open and published so that future generations can understand it. To assist in preserving email messages, Encryptomatic LLC has added PDF/A capabilities to its popular PST Viewer Pro email viewer.

PstViewer Pro lets you view, search, convert and export email messages from a variety of email formats, including Outlook .pst, .ost and .msg files, mht and .eml files, and winmail.dat files.

Converting Email to PDF/A

 To convert email messages to PDF/A format using Pst Viewer Pro, the first step is to read in your email messages, and then select those that you want to convert to PDF/A.  Next, select PDF/A from the toolbar.  Finally, click the Export button to start the process.

Select PDF/A from the Export Profile List

You can export a single email message, or thousands of selected messages. PST Viewer Pro will continue working until the last file is exported.

File Attachment Options

Email messages very often contain file attachments. Pst Viewer Pro provides different options for dealing with file attachments. You can attempt to convert the attachments into the PDF image;  extract the attachments to an external folder; you can choose to embed the files within the PDF. Any of Pst Viewer Pro's export profiles that create PDF files can have PDF/A mode activated. To do this, select the export profile that you want to use, and then click the "Edit Profile" button from the toolbar. Check the box for "ISO 19005-1 (PDF/A)" to ensure that it is enabled for this profile. The image below shows how this can be done.

How to switch on PDF/A with Pst Viewer Pro

With a little forethought, important email messages can be preserved for posterity.  Download a free trial of Pst Viewer Pro software and start your PDF/A email archiving project today.

Pst Viewer Pro is now a 64-bit application

By Darren Leno
 

Pst Viewer Pro has been updated to a 64-bit Windows application in version 4.8.  This update means that Pst Viewer Pro can now take advantage of the higher addressable memory of 64-bit computers.  While 32-bit Windows systems are limited to less than 4 gigabytes, 64-bit Windows systems running native 64-bit software applications can address beyond hundreds of gigabytes of memory.

Outlook email messages are stored in personal storage tables, or PST files.  PST files contain email messages, file attachments, calendar items and notes, and can grow to be several gigabytes.  We've seen them as large as 50 GB.  Pst Viewer Pro will now have the benefit of fully utilizing the memory on your computer while it performs search and export operations.

Version 4.8 of Pst Viewer Pro was released in February, 2013. The trial download file combines both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions into a single installer, and will automatically install the correct version on your computer. Version 4.8 has many important updates and is recommended for all current Pst Viewer Pro customers. Current customers who have not installed version 4.8 will have a 32-bit version. To update from within Pst Viewer Pro, go to Help > Check for Updates

Run the Pst Viewer Pro update installer.  If your computer is running a 64 bit Windows operating system, then Pst Viewer Pro 64-bit will be installed automatically. If you want to check to be sure, go to Help > About and look for the Pst Viewer Pro version number.

About screen confirming 64 bit installation

Preliminary tests on a laptop running 8 GB of RAM show a marked increase in performance while searching a 2.5 GB pst file.

Pst Viewer Pro can also export Outlook emails to PDF and other formats. PDF export operations also showed a significant improvement in speed while converting email file attachments to PDF images.

 Pst Viewer Pro 4.8 includes a number of important updates. Here's the change log:

Enhancements
- 64 bit PSTViewer Pro version
- Easy selection for all messages in the list, "Select all" context menu item has been added
- "Connect with us" menu item
- New association icons
- Improved EML decoding
- Improved message enumeration indicator in the status bar

Bug fixes

- Fixed incorrect shortcut icons in the folder tree
- Removed VML artifacts from HTML message body (MSG, PST, OST files)
- Resolved subject cutting in Japanese for some EML files
- Fixed very small font size in PDF export
- Fix for error 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file DockLayouts.xml'
- Fix for error 'System.OutOfMemoryException' when reading messages
- MHT file icon is missing for 64-bit system
- Improved export to MBOX format, removed odd new line symbols
- Corrected exporting MSG file with MSG attachment to EML format with "noname" file attachments.

PST to MBOX Conversion with Pst Viewer Pro

By Darren Leno
 

Pst Viewer Pro is an email viewer for Outlook .pst, .ost, .msg, .eml, .mht and winmail.dat files.  It's much more than a viewer, however. With Pst Viewer Pro you can export email messages to different formats, convert them to PDF, reply and forward emails using your default email client, manage messages as a batch, and much  more. Today's article looks at utilizing Pst Viewer Pro's MBOX conversion capability.

PST to MBOX

Microsoft Outlook is a wonderful tool for managing email content. Yet, for various reasons, some people find it desirable to convert their Outlook email content to the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.  In this article, we will use PST Viewer Pro to convert selected email messages in an Outlook .pst (Personal STorage file) to MBOX, an open format that can be imported to many  email clients.

Use the "Download Now" button on the right side of this page to get a 15 day free trial of Pst Viewer Pro, and follow along. Note that the trial of Pst Viewer Pro will let you export up to 50 messages, which is just fine for a test.  The full version does not have this restriction, allowing you to export any number of email messages.

Start Pst Viewer Pro and select your Outlook .pst file.  The file may be chosen by using the navigation on the left side of your Pst Viewer Pro user interface. Click Pst Viewer Pro's '+' expander to show the folder structure of the .pst file.   

Today we will export only the Inbox folder from the pst file.  Click Inbox.  

Select the Outlook .pst file

The email messages in the Inbox folder will be displayed in the mail list.

Mail list showing email messages from PST file's Inbox

Click on the first message and then type "CTRL-A" to select all of the messages in the mail list. This will select all of the messages in the Outlook .pst file's Inbox. 

If you are curious about how many items your new mbox file will contain, look at the lower right corner of Pst Viewer Pro to see the message count.

To begin the export process, go to the Pst Viewer Pro's export profile selection drop down list in the main toolbar.  From among the many export formatting options, choose MBOX.

Choose the MBOX export profile

To begin the export of the selected emails from your PST into a new MBOX file, click the Export button (the export button is circled in the image above). Pst Viewer Pro will ask you where you where you would like store the MBOX file. Choose your desired location. In my example, I'm going to export it to my desktop. I'll call my file "export1."

Click Save, and the process will begin. Exporting about 3,000 messages took my lightweight laptop computer less than ten minutes.

When the process completes, my 39 MB MBOX file is stored on my desktop. 

The process for importing the MBOX file will depend on the email client you are using. Please refer to your email client's help index for specific details about importing email from MBOX files.

Visit the product's home page for more information about Pst Viewer Pro.

Viewing Pst Files Stored on Dropbox Cloud Service

Pst Viewer Pro is a flexible tool for viewing and searching Outlook email messages. The latest version, 4.7, includes the ability to open emails that are stored through the Dropbox email service.  Large PST files that are synched through Dropbox may be opened by Pst Viewer Pro.

To open a .pst file with Pst Viewer Pro from Dropbox, you would select the file from within the Explorer Tree folder view.  This is the the folder navigation structure that appears on the left side of your Pst Viewer Pro screen.

The navigation path would typically be Desktop > Computer > C:\  > Users > {User Name} > Desktop > Dropbox

If a PST file is present in your Dropbox folder it will be visible in the file explorer. You can expand the pst file to show its structure. Click on a folder, and the emails in that folder will be shown in the maillist.   To see all emails in the pst file, click on the top folder of the pst file heirarchy.

Pst Viewer Pro lets you open pst files on Dropbox

This method also works for Google Drive, Skydrive and most other cloud services that replicate content from the cloud to your local drive.

Pst Viewer Pro is an advanced viewer for Outlook email content. It opens email container files that have the extensions of pst, ost, eml, mht or msg.  You can use Pst Viewer Pro to search email content, and convert it to useful formats like pdd, and many others.  You can download a 15 day free trial of Pst Viewer Pro and learn more from the product home page.