The main Transformer window

The file menu provides access to all file-related functions for saving and loading transformation sequences, source texts, and output text.

On the Transform menu, you'll find all the functions related to creating, editing and ordering transformation sequence items, along with access to the Batch processing window, which allows you to run your sequence against a set of files.

The Options menu has only two items: Preferences, where you can change settings for the interface of Transformer, and Translate the interface, which is a tool for creating an interface for the program in another language.

The Help menu provides access to the tutorial, the Help file, and details of the program version.

This text box contains the source text on which the replace operations will be performed. The file itself is not modified; the resulting output text is simply placed in the text box below, from where it can be saved if necessary. The contents of this text box can be edited manually. Nothing is ever saved from this text box, so there's no danger of overwriting the original source text file.

The results of replace operations performed on the Source text are placed in the Output text box. You can save this text to disk if you wish.

This toolbar provides quick access to functions related to the creation, editing and sequencing of transformation items in the sequence below.

These buttons provide functions for loading a text file (Unicode, ANSI or ASCII) and for importing a binary file.

These buttons provide access to functions for saving the results of a replace sequence operation, and also for escaping and unescaping some types of character. You can also push the results back up into the Source text box for further processing if you wish.

This shows the file name of the current transformation sequence file.

This shows the file name of the last source text file you loaded into the text box above.

If you save the contents of the output text box to disk, the filename will be shown here.

Search-and-replace operations are shown in the sequence list with their Name, Find text, and Replace text, in three columns. If you want to run only a limited number of the operations in the list, you can check the ones you want to run, and then check the Checked items only text box below.

Where simple search-and-replace is not enough, you can write JavaScript code to transform the source text. Script items have Name fields, just like replace items, but they don't have a Find or Replace string, so you'll just see [Script] in those columns.

If you click on the column headers at the top of the sequence list, the list will be sorted according to that column header. If the order of the sequence is important, as it usually is, beware of re-sorting the items by clicking on the column headers inadvertently!