This commandline program converts CEWE FOTOWELT/CEWE Creator .mcfx photobook project files to high quality .pdf documents.
It's still an early version with probably many missing features, see the Known Issues section below, but for photobooks containing images and text it gets the job done.
If you encounter a bug or the generated pdf contains errors please report an Issue Describe the problem and attach the cewe2pdf.log file, located next to the Cewe2pdf.exe.
This file may contain file- and foldernames from your computer. Open it in Notepad to review its content.
Recently Cewe updated the file format of the Designer Software - now ending in .mcfx instead of the old .mcf.
From version 0.4.0 onwards, Cewe2pdf only supports these new files. For old, regular .mcffiles, use previous releases.
Opposed to the old version, the new format actually contains the image data itself, images are no longer stored in a separate directory. An mcfx file is basically just a sqlite3 database with a custom file extension. The database consists of 3 columns: Data, Filename and LastModified. For the pdf conversion, only Data and Filename are relevant. All image files, as well as the old xml-format mcf file are stored in this database. The image paths from the xml now point to Data entries in the database and can be accessed by name.
To support the new fileformat, the old McfParser class was refactored to use the in-memory version of the mcf hierarchy, extracted from the database. To access the database, a new Mcfx class was introduced that wraps the sqlite commands to retrieve the required data for the conversion.
In it's current, initial state it supports extracting image files, as well as the mcf description as binary data.
Head over to the release section and download the latest build for your platform.
Note: Currently only Windows Binaries provided.
To run, this program requires the .NET 10.0 runtime installed on your System. Get the appropriate version from:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/10.0/runtime
(Run console apps should be enough, but any version will work.)
This is a commandline only program, there is no graphical interface to interact with. Detailed Instructions
Conversion with default settings, generates the pdf next to the mcfx file:
Cewe2pdf <pathTo.mcfx>
List options:
Cewe2pdf --help
Extract all files from the downloaded .zip to any location on your computer, for example your Desktop.
In Windows Explorer, drag your photobook.mcfx file onto the Cewe2pdf.exe. A commandline window appears and the conversion starts. Once the commandline window closes, the conversion is finished. You find a photobook-converted.pdf next to the original photobook.mcfx file.
Currently only the following features are supported!
- Images
- Text Boxes
- Image Borders
This works for my usecase, please report missing elements here.
Please also attach the cewe2pdf.log file, which is located next to the Cewe2pdf.exe This file may contain file- and foldernames from your computer. Open it in Notepad to review its content.
This program is written in C# for the .NET 10.0 runtime and should build on any platform. It uses iTextSharp 5 for pdf rendering, and System.Drawing.Commons for image loading.
mcfxfiles are sqlite3 databases, queried using the System.Data.SQLite API.
.mcf files are just plain XML files, parsed using the C# native System.Xml API.
Photobook backgrounds are stored as .webp images in the CEWE installation directory, loaded thorugh the excellent WebP Wrapper.
Changelog
v0.4.0
[added] support new .mcfx file format, old mcf files are not longer supported, use an older release for those
[fixed] improve text handling to extract properly from the embedded html - introduced in a newer Cewe version
[changed] cleaned up some internal design id handling, instead of resorting to a predefined resource list, scan installation directory on demand
v0.3.0
[added] new background system, loading color directly from .webp files
[fixed] multiline text with same color, did not inherit color from previous lines
v0.2.0
[added] support for page numbers, inlcuding font, color & size
[added] support for colored, bold, italic, underlined text
[fixed] keep images resolution consistent
v0.1.0 Initial Release.
* images
* image borders
* background colors
* basic text boxes
Roadmap
- more configuration options some actually already exist, just not exposed to commandline
The Code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License, but note that iTextSharp uses the AGPL License.
MIT License
Copyright (C) 2025 Stefan Kreller
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.