Database & Conversion
ChessBase Light
Freeware from ChessBase. Windows.
ChessBase Light is a free version of
the database program ChessBase 6 however limited to a maximum of 8000 games in
one file. Reads and saves PGN and CBH (ChessBase' own format).
You can find
CB Light (2.62 mb) on
http://www.chessbase.com by chosing "Support" and
"Downloads".
CDB
Freeware by Peter Klausler. Windows 9*.
CDB builds databases of chess
games and positions and keeps track of all known moves in a position as well as
game statistics. Games are added from the user interface or by importing PGN,
text, NIC, ChessBase or Chess Assistant. Positions can be analysed with
Crafty.
CDB also works fine as a PGN-browser and is a
useful tool for conversion from different database formats to PGN.
Download
from
ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/chess/UTIL/ or
directly from
http://www.chessopolis.com/cdb-1_5.exe
(398 KB).
ChessPad
Freeware by Mark van der Leek. Win 9*/NT.
A handy and easy-to-use
database. There's no limit to the number of games, but with more than 250.000 it
gets a bit slow. ChessPad has its own file format, but reads and writes PGN.
There are several search options, but you cannot search for a certain position.
ChessPad can export games and diagrams as HTML or in RTF-format, that can be
imported by most wordprocessors. For diagrams and (if you like) figurine
notation you can choose between different
true type
chess fonts. Games and diagrams can also be exported for use on webpages.
Compared to commercial products this excellent program has a few limitations
that are unimportant for most players - and it's free!
Download from
ChessPad Homepage (902 kb).
Jose
Freeware by Peter Schäfer. Windows, Linux and more.
A complete chess
database program with a nice looking interface and many possibilities. For
instance you can have a program like Crafty analyse the game. Jose is written in
Java, which slows it down just a bit, but at the same time this means that the
program isn't confined to one platform only (e.g. Windows).
Which file to
download depends on your operating system, but Windows users should download
"jose-10-windows-jre.exe" (almost 28 mb) that has all you need (including
Crafty!). If you have Java version 1.4 installed already, you can save
band-width and go for jose-10-windows.exe.
Read about Jose and download from
the author's homepage.
Scid
Freeware by Shane Hudson. Windows, Unix, Linux.
A nifty database program
that reads PGN and EPD. You can search using filters, export games etc.
Crafty can be used as analysis module. The user interface
seems a bit simple, but works and is easy to use. To use the program with
Linux/Unix you need Tck/Tk (8.0 or higher) and a C++ compiler. The Windows
version is ready to run once you have installed the interface Tcl/Tk (2,5 mb).
Explanation and download (722 kb) on
Scid Homepage.
ChessDB
Freeware by Dr. David Kirkby. Windows, Unix, Linux.
A project based on
Scid (see above) and with several enhancements. For instance ChessDB supports
more languages, and you can download pgn files directly from The Week In Chess
(TWIC) and ICC. See the program's homepage for further information and download.
Link:
ChessDB
homepage.
Yahoo to pgn
Free service by Ben Marini and Douglass Davis.
Online conversion of Yahoo
Chess Game Notation to PGN, so games played at "Yahoo" can be read by most chess
programs.
Link:
http://www.douglassdavis.com/pgnchess2006/.
YahooChess2pgn
Freeware by 'Black Eagle'.
Converts Yahoo Chess Game Notation to PGN, so
games played at "Yahoo" can be read by most chess programs.
Download from
http://www.baydsoft.com/yahoochess/default.asp?p=chess (248
kb).
Pgn-Extract
Freeware by David Barnes. DOS/Unix/Linux.
This utility extracts and
manipulates games from PGN-files. You can use many criteria and search/extract
doubles, positions, players, move sequence, ECO-codes etc.
Download from
http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/people/staff/djb/pgn-extract/
(313 kb).
Chess Game Notation File Converter
Freeware by Dimitris Siskopoulos. Windows.
Pgn files are written with the
English letters for king, queen etc. (KQRBN). With this program you can convert
the letters to other languages. You can also manipulate fields (the header lines
with information).
Download from
http://www.code.gr/chess-converter/ (73 kb).
PGN Manager
Freeware by Eduardo Suastegui. DOS.
An excellent - and fast - utility for
handling PGN files. Join, split and filter files.
Download
pm.zip (98 kb) from our
site.
PGNUTILS
Freeware by Tom McCormick. DOS.
A suite of useful PGN utilities. New
version October 2006.
Download
PGNUTILS (962 KB) from this site.
Several excellent programs for handling pgn files: automatically clean up
syntax errors, remove comments, remove unnecessary tags, remove games by players
who have < 2500 ELO, fix Linux/Unix pgn files for use in Windows and much
more.
PgnGlue.bat
Actually you don't need a multiple stars program to merge (append) pgn-files.
The following DOS tip will do the trick fast and easy (thanks to Lars Venø
Jakobsen). Make a text file with two lines:
for %%f IN (*.PGN) DO type %%f>>collect.out
ren collect.out collect.pgn
and save it as "somename.bat" in the pgn file
folder. Be sure your editor doesn't append "txt" to the file name (like
"somename.bat.txt"). The extension
must be "bat". When you double-click
on the icon, all pgn files in the folder will be collected in one file,
"collect.out" which is then renamed to pgn. You can even filter the files; if
for instance you write (a*.pgn) only files with "a" as first char will be
merged. It also works from the command line in DOS, but then you must remember
to rename the file. Just replace the double "%%" with a single "%", like in:
for %f IN (*.PGN) DO type %f>>collect.out