What type of file has the extension .svd?
June 18, 2010 2:37 AM Subscribe
My supervisor has several files from a previous student with the extension .svd which we cannot open. He thought they were files saved by a spectrophotometer, but they are not a type recognised by the software attached to the spec in our lab (Vision32).
Any ideas as to what type of file these are?
The internet suggests only MS Word autosave files on a search for the .svd extension, but I assume these are only used by older versions of Word.
Attempting to open the files with Word 2003 just gives rubbish, as does opening in a text editor.
Does anyone know if there is a particular spectrophotometer software that save as .svd?
The internet suggests only MS Word autosave files on a search for the .svd extension, but I assume these are only used by older versions of Word.
Attempting to open the files with Word 2003 just gives rubbish, as does opening in a text editor.
Does anyone know if there is a particular spectrophotometer software that save as .svd?
I was going to suggest Video CD too. Buried in this document is a reference to 'tracks.svd', which is a track information file.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:50 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:50 AM on June 18, 2010
Are you on unix or do you have access to a unix machine? If so typing
file filename.svd
will look at the file header and tell you what it is if it knows. Alternatively, quite often the first few characters of a file (when looked at in ascii) can tell you stuff, so for example an openoffice word processor file has a load of control characters then mimetypeapplication/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text and a jpeg has JFIF. So opening the file in (say) notepad can actually give you some clues.
posted by handee at 3:24 AM on June 18, 2010
file filename.svd
will look at the file header and tell you what it is if it knows. Alternatively, quite often the first few characters of a file (when looked at in ascii) can tell you stuff, so for example an openoffice word processor file has a load of control characters then mimetypeapplication/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text and a jpeg has JFIF. So opening the file in (say) notepad can actually give you some clues.
posted by handee at 3:24 AM on June 18, 2010
Response by poster: Ooops.
Should have mentioned this.
The files are all about 2kb.
I've ruled out them being Video CD track information files because:
There is twenty or so of them in a single directory.
I can see no reason why anyone would create Video CD files from the data generated by a spectrophotometer.
I could be wrong though...
posted by jonnyseveral at 3:36 AM on June 18, 2010
Should have mentioned this.
The files are all about 2kb.
I've ruled out them being Video CD track information files because:
There is twenty or so of them in a single directory.
I can see no reason why anyone would create Video CD files from the data generated by a spectrophotometer.
I could be wrong though...
posted by jonnyseveral at 3:36 AM on June 18, 2010
Response by poster: Opening the files in a text editor gives the following readable strings interspersed through control codes:
"Inclusion Variable raV
Row Number raV
ataD"
and the filename.svd
posted by jonnyseveral at 3:41 AM on June 18, 2010
"Inclusion Variable raV
Row Number raV
ataD"
and the filename.svd
posted by jonnyseveral at 3:41 AM on June 18, 2010
Best answer: Googling 'svd file "inclusion variable"' gives us some results from the UCLA linguistics department, One of the resulting files is called "3-level-compact.svd", so we google 'site:site:www.linguistics.ucla.edu 3-level-compact' and find the text that links to this file. One step up is the summary of the required software for the lab, which lists Excel, SPSS and StatView. Googling 'statview svd' gives us '(*.svd) - StatView dataset files' - there, that was easy- you'll want StatView, I presume.
posted by themel at 4:11 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by themel at 4:11 AM on June 18, 2010
Best answer: Googling "Inclusion Variable raV" I found this then this and from this I wonder if it's a StatView file?
posted by Mike1024 at 4:12 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by Mike1024 at 4:12 AM on June 18, 2010
fileext.com, which used to be the go-to site for this type of information, at one point had decent information on file extensions but looks to have been both commercialized a la imdb and have cut their data in half if not smaller. Might be an opportunity for someone to (re-)create a more explicitly open community-sourced site.
posted by cps at 5:31 AM on June 18, 2010
posted by cps at 5:31 AM on June 18, 2010
Response by poster: themel and Mike1024 are right. I shall now erect a small shrine to them and worship them as my new gods.
Cheers people.
posted by jonnyseveral at 7:02 AM on June 18, 2010
Cheers people.
posted by jonnyseveral at 7:02 AM on June 18, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jozxyqk at 2:40 AM on June 18, 2010