To convert a file, you must first determine whether the file contains any subfiles (attachments, embedded OLE objects, and so on). A file that contains subfiles is called a container file. A container file has a main file (parent) and subfiles (children) embedded in the main file.

The following are examples of container files:

NOTE: Supported Formats indicates which formats are treated as container files and are supported by the File Extraction API.

The subfiles might also be container files, creating a file hierarchy of multiple levels. For example, an MSG file (the root parent) might contain three attachments:

NOTE: The parent MSG file contains four first-level children. The body text of a message file, although not a standalone file in the container, is considered a child of the parent file.