This is part two of a two part series covering the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile Notes application which, although is a very handy application for storing text based notes and embedded audio recordings, doesn’t easily convert for transfer to Windows applications.

Part 1: PWI -> TXT

Part one discussed the process and methods available that can convert the text into something that your desktop Windows will be able to open and edit.

Part 2: PWI -> WAV/MP3

Part two will discuss the processes and methods available to extract the embedded audio from the notes file to your Windows computer, again for listening and editing.

I hope you find these helpful. If you know of other ideas and methods I did not discuss, please leave a comment below and share it so that others can benefit! Thanks!

For those who are interested in converting the text portion of the .pwi file into .txt format, click here.

Part 2: PWI -> WAV/MP3

Extracting the Audio from PWI into WAV file

For those with .pwi notes files with embedded audio, you may need to undo the conversion setting in ActiveSync discussed in Solution 3 since ActiveSync will automatically convert the .pwi files into .txt when copied to the desktop.

So, go back to solution 3 and now make sure that .pwi will not be converted.

Now, you can either copy the .pwi file from your device via Mobile Device or use a card reader or card reader software like Softick’s Card Export for Windows Mobile, or beam it via infrared, bluetooth or other methods you prefer.

There are three different methods of extracting the audio file from the .pwi file.

Solution A: Using Werner Ruotsalainen’s conversion software

Solution B: Open .pwi with Audacity and Save as Wave or convert to mp3

Solution C: Open .pwi file in MS word and copy with Sound Recorder

Solution A: Using Werner Ruotsalainen’s conversion software

Use a third party software converter

Rather than rehashing the detailed information provided by Werner, here’s a link to his posting at Smartphone Magazine’s forums: Extracting embedded WAV files from PWI files. It is also posted here at the Pocket PC Thoughts forum. Werner has created a conversion software to extract the audio from .pwi files, one for the PC and one for the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile. You may want to try them both and figure out which works better for you.

I have not tried the software so I can’t comment on it. But based on the forum responses, it seems to work fine with many people.

Solution B: Open .pwi with Audacity and Save as Wave or convert to mp3

Open with Audacity and save in wave or mp3

This method was also mentioned by a forum member in Werner’s posting in Solution A. Basically, this involves opening the .pwi file with Audacity which will automatically import and extract the wave file. From there, you can either save it as a wave file or convert it to mp3. It’s up to you.

For a quick run through of the instruction:

Open up Audacity.

Go into Project. Import Raw Data

Determine the sound settings and level and click on Import. You should now see the audio loaded into Audacity.

Now, you can easily save it as a wav file or mp3 or ogg vorbis by selecting the respective Export As format.

Solution C: Open .pwi file in MS Word and copy with Sound Recorder

Open file with MS Word and copy into Sound Recorder

This solution, unlike the previous one in which requires the user to first find and download Audacity. With this solution, you are expected to have MS Word and use Sound Recorder, which comes with Microsoft Windows. There are a few steps involved. The method was discussed originally in this Brighthand forum posting.

To provide a more detailed and easier to understand method, I will be stepping through the process.

First, you’ll need to open the .pwi file with MS Word. In my example, I have created a .pwi notes file called “This is a test notes.pwi” with text and audio embedded. Opening the .pwi brings up the following:

Right click on the Sound or speaker icon as shown below and select Sound Recorder Document Object. Edit.

It will bring up Sound Recorder with the audio as seen below.

Now, open up another Sound Recorder file by opening up Sound Recorder.

Go to: Start. Program Files. Accessories. Entertainment. Sound Recorder

This is the new Sound Recorder program with no loaded audio.

Go to the original Sound Recorder program (left screenshot). Under Edit. Select Copy. In the new Sound Recorder program (right screenshot), go into Edit. Paste Insert.

Here is the second Sound Recorder with the newly loaded or copied audio. Notice it does not have a title and has the 6.25 sec length as the original file.

Now, you can save the file as a wave file with the filename and folder/directory you wish.

Done!

This concludes the two part series on converting PWI files from the Notes application in Windows Mobile/Pocket PC into txt and wav files. I hope you have found it helpful and helped solved the problem of accessing the Notes files on your computer. To read part one on converting from pwi to txt, click here.

If you know of other methods or ideas for converting .pwi files into wav files, please leave a comment below and share it so that the rest of us can benefit! Thanks!

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