SXW to TCR Converter

SXW to TCR — compressed text ebook for Psion readers

Drop files here. 1 GB maximum file size or Sign Up
to
Facebook Amazon Microsoft Tesla Nestle Walmart L'Oreal

Compact Text Format

TCR compresses plain text efficiently — perfect for extracting readable content from SXW files into tiny ebook files.

Remote Processing

All conversion work happens on Convertio servers. Your device simply uploads the SXW and downloads the TCR result.

Fast Conversion

TCR files are lightweight and process quickly. Most SXW to TCR conversions complete in just seconds on the cloud.

How to convert SXW to TCR

1

Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.

2

Choose tcr or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)

3

Let the file convert and you can download your tcr file right afterwards

About formats

SXW is the word processing document format used by StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice.org 1.0, developed by Sun Microsystems and released in 2002. The format was one of the first mainstream office document formats to adopt an XML-based architecture, packaging document content, styles, metadata, and embedded media in a ZIP archive — a structural approach that directly influenced the later OpenDocument Format (ODF). The content.xml file describes the document body using XML elements for paragraphs, headings, lists, tables, footnotes, and inline formatting, while styles.xml defines the styling rules and meta.xml carries document properties. SXW represented a significant milestone in open-source office software, demonstrating that a non-proprietary XML format could handle the full range of word processing features including change tracking, indexes, cross-references, and complex page layouts. One advantage was transparency and openness — the XML structure made document content inspectable, transformable, and processable using standard tools, a sharp contrast to the opaque binary formats dominant at the time. The format's role as a technological precursor to the ODF standard is another historical significance: the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee used the OpenOffice.org XML format (including SXW) as the starting point for developing ODF 1.0. While SXW was superseded by ODT with OpenOffice.org 2.0 in 2005, existing SXW documents can be opened by LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice, and document conversion tools.
Developer: Sun Microsystems
Initial release: 2002
TCR (Text Compression for Reader) is a compressed plain-text ebook format developed by Barry Childress in the early 1990s for the Psion Series 3 family of palmtop computers. The format was created for Childress's Reader3 application, a text file viewer that needed to fit large books into the Psion's extremely limited storage — typically 128 KB to 2 MB of available memory. TCR uses a dictionary-based compression scheme derived from the earlier ZVR format by Ian Giddings, replacing repeated byte sequences with single-byte tokens that reference a header dictionary. This straightforward approach achieves compression ratios of roughly 40-60% on typical English prose while requiring minimal CPU resources for decompression. The Psion Series 3 ran on a 3.84 MHz NEC V30 processor with no floating-point unit, so TCR's low computational overhead was essential for smooth page-by-page reading. A key advantage is remarkable storage efficiency for its simplicity — users could carry dozens of novels on removable SSD cards that held only a few hundred kilobytes. The format found a dedicated user community among Psion enthusiasts who built libraries of compressed literature for portable reading years before smartphones existed. Though the Psion platform faded from the market in the early 2000s, TCR files can still be opened and converted by modern ebook tools, and the format stands as an early example of purpose-built mobile reading technology from the pre-smartphone era.
Developer: Barry Childress
Initial release: 1993

Frequently Asked Questions

Why convert SXW to TCR?

TCR is a compressed text format for Psion devices — ideal for creating small, efficient ebook files from old SXW documents.

What reads TCR files?

Psion e-readers, Calibre, and some mobile ebook apps can open TCR files. Calibre also converts TCR to other ebook formats.

Is content preserved?

TCR stores plain text, so all readable text from your SXW transfers. Formatting, images, and objects are stripped during conversion.

Is the conversion free?

Basic SXW to TCR conversion is free on Convertio. Premium plans handle higher volume and offer priority processing speeds.

Can I convert from any device?

Yes — the converter runs in any web browser. Works on Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile platforms without any installation.

How small are TCR files?

TCR uses compression for plain text, producing very small files — ideal for devices with limited storage or bandwidth.