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MPF Extract
This is a NoteTab Clip. Some version of NoteTab is required for use.

First, a little background...

Microsoft Clipart Gallery is a huge collection of images, sounds, and animations. It's meant to be an online extension of Microsoft Office. If you own Office (or a related product) and visit the online clipart collection, you select the media you'd like, then click download items. A little program called Clip Organizer (or Clip Gallery) then catches the download and extracts the images into your pictures folder and you have access to them directly, or through your MS Office Product.

Neato, nifty, and works like charm... unless you don't own Microsoft Office. In which case you end up downloading a file named ClipArt.mpf and have no idea what to do with it.

Well, the good news is that you CAN do something with it and it's not really all that difficult. An MPF file is nothing more than a text file... an XML file to be more specific. (an XML file is similar to an HTML file) You can open it in any text editor.

Here's a look inside a typical MPF file...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<D:multistatus xmlns:D="DAV:" xmlns:C="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:clipgallery" xmlns:dt="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:datatypes">
	<D:response>
		<D:href>-Flat/{af105344-4dd8-4d45-aae4-77820a8d8466}</D:href>
		<D:propstat>
			<D:status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</D:status>
			<D:prop>
				<C:subject>businesses,businessmen,carts of work,handcarts,loaded with work,males,men,metaphors,paperwork,People,persons,web animations,wheelbarrows</C:subject>
				<C:xsubject>businessman,handcart,male,man,person,web animation,wheelbarrow,j0286669,@Style=750</C:xsubject>
				<C:collections>/Downloaded Clips,/Downloaded Clips/Business,/Downloaded Clips/Web Elements,/Downloaded Clips/Abstract</C:collections>
				<C:type>Motion</C:type>
				<C:width>110</C:width>
				<C:height>99</C:height>
				<C:units><C:pixels/></C:units>
				<C:duration>0</C:duration>
				<D:getlastmodified>01/16/2006 00:00:00</D:getlastmodified>
				<D:getcontentlength>11309</D:getcontentlength>
				<C:resource>
					<C:filepath>j0286669.gif</C:filepath>
					<C:contents dt:dt="bin.base64">
R0lGODlhbgBjAPf/AP/////MzP+ZZsz//8zMzMzMmcyZmcyZZsxmZsxmM5 ...most of this line removed, it's usually VERY long... DMAAAAzMwAAAP//zP//mf//zP+Zmf+ZM/+ZAP9m//9mzP9mmf9mZv9mM/9mAP8z//8zzP8zmf8zZv8zM/8zAQEADs=
					</C:contents>
				</C:resource>
			</D:prop>
		</D:propstat>
etc, etc, blah, blah, blah...

If you look closely, you'll see it contains lots of information (metadata) about the media file (in this case a GIF animation). It contains the file name (j0286669.gif), its width (110) and height (99), keywords related to the image, and most importantly, the file data itself (the line that starts R0lGODlhbgBjA...)

That file data has been encoded from it's original binary form into a text format called Base64. In order for us to make use of the file data, that long text string has to be decoded back into it's orginal binary form. This can be done pretty easily with a command line Base64 encoder/decoder. (For the not so quick and dirty manual process, experienced users might wish to have a look at manually extracting data from MPF files. For the easy-as-pie and slick-as-a-greased-pig NoteTab clip, continue reading...)

This NoteTab clip makes the whole process of extraction and decoding a breeze.

First, download, unzip and install the clip. In the zip file you will also find a copy of base64.exe. This is the command line encoder/decoder and MUST be placed in the same file as the clip.

Download mpfextract.zip

Second, make sure that when downloading media from Microsoft's site, you check "Import into Clip Organizer version 2002 or newer". This will give you an MPF file. (The other option, "Import into Clip Gallery version 5.0 or older" will give you a binary CIL file which we cannot use.)

Third, run the clip through NoteTab and when prompted, choose your MPF file and a folder to place the decoded media files. Couldn't be simpler.

For those with some experience using NoteTab clips, you can simply grab the code below and do with it what you wish. All the code is contained in that one clip. You can place it within another clip library or in its own library. Name it whatever you wish. Just be sure to grab base64.exe which you will also need. Place it wherever you place the clip.

show clip