A component of Microsoft Index Server that can read a specific document format and turn it into a stream of text characters. Content filters are an essential part of the indexing process on Index Server because they determine which types of documents can be read and indexed. Index Server includes content filters for popular file formats such as:
In addition, many third-party companies have produced content filters for their own document formats, allowing these documents to be indexed by Index Server when their content filters have been installed. Content filters also handle the presence of embedded objects in documents and recognize when a language shift occurs in a multilingual document.