Export one drawer
Do this on a single drawer before you plan anything around the result. Thomson Reuters warns that exporting a lot at once is hard on the machine, and says to test first.
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Pick the drawer
In the Folders window, highlight the drawer holding the documents you want.
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Choose File, then Send to, then File
The Send to File Location dialog opens. The same thing sits under the dropdown on the Send to Email button.
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Check where it is going
The dialog shows where the files will land. Use Modify Destination to change it.
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Pick the documents
Highlight documents on the left and click Select to move them to the right. Highlight the drawer name to take everything in it.
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Set the naming boxes, then click OK
Change the file name if you want, and tick any of the four boxes covered below. Click OK and the files are written.
What does not come out with the files
One sentence in Thomson Reuters' help for that dialog decides your whole plan: the resulting file will not include the FileCabinet CS folder structure for the documents you select. Your drawers, your folders, and your years are on the screen in FileCabinet CS. They are not in the files you get out.
Thomson Reuters gives you one way around it, and it is manual. To keep documents split up by folder, run a separate export for every folder. To keep them apart when you export several drawers at once, tick the Drawer ID box so the drawer goes into each file name. Both work. Neither is much use on a cabinet with several hundred clients, unless somebody has weeks to spare.
This is why an export that worked can still look like a disaster. Nothing broke. The export did exactly what it says it does, and the filing system you spent fifteen years building lived in the program, not in the files.
What each document comes out as
What you get depends on how the document went in. Four cases, from Thomson Reuters' export help.
| How the document went in | What comes out |
|---|---|
| Printed from a CS Professional Suite program | |
| Printed through the FileCabinet CS print driver | |
| Added with Image, then Copy from File | The file type it went in as |
| Scanned with Image, then Scan | PNG |
| Embedded document | The file type it went in as |
Thomson Reuters does not support other companies' PDF print drivers for converting documents.
The four naming boxes, and what they will not do
The Send to File Location dialog can put a few details on the end of each file name. That is the only structure the export carries, so choose on purpose.
- Drawer ID
- Puts the drawer ID on the end of the file name. Thomson Reuters says to use this one when you export several drawers at once, because it is the only thing keeping one client's documents apart from another's in a single folder.
- Drawer Name
- Puts the drawer name on the end instead. Easier to read than the ID, and closer to how your staff will recognize a client later.
- Folder
- Puts the folder on the end. Since no folders come out, this is the only trace of which folder a document sat in.
- Creation Date
- Puts the creation date on the end. Good for sorting, but this is the day the document went into FileCabinet CS, which is not always the year the work belongs to.
- What none of them do
- Thomson Reuters says these boxes are not available for custom file names or for embedded document names. So the documents your staff took the trouble to name properly are the ones that come out telling you the least.
Before you export the lot
Run one drawer and open the folder. Look at the names. Then ask the question everything else hangs on. Could somebody at your firm, two years from now, pick up any one of those files and say which client and which year it belongs to? For a lot of cabinets the answer is no, and it is better to find that out on one drawer than on four hundred.
Write down the size on disk and the document count while you are in there. Every quote you get is based on those two numbers.
Work out where the files are going before you run the real export, not after. Files sitting in one flat pile get moved once, by hand, by somebody in a hurry. That is when documents go missing.
Questions people ask
Can I export every drawer at once?
You can pick more than one, but Thomson Reuters warns that exporting several drawers is hard on the machine and says to test first. It also says to tick the Drawer ID box so one client's documents stay apart from another's, since no folders come out.
Why do my exported files have the wrong names?
The export writes the document name FileCabinet CS holds, plus whatever you ticked. Thomson Reuters says those boxes are not available for custom file names or embedded document names, so the documents somebody named by hand come out with the least on them.
Does the export keep my drawers and folders?
No. Thomson Reuters says the resulting file will not include the FileCabinet CS folder structure. To keep documents split up by folder you have to run a separate export for every folder.
What format do the files come out in?
PDF for anything printed from a CS Professional Suite program or the FileCabinet CS print driver. Documents added with Copy from File and embedded documents keep the file type they went in as, and scans come out as PNG.
Sources
Everything above about how the software behaves comes from the people who make it. Go and read it yourself. We print the addresses instead of linking them, with the day we read each one.
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Exporting data from FileCabinet CS
Thomson Reuters · read September 18, 2026
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/help/filecabinet-cs/printing/exporting-data-from-filecabinet-cs
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Sending documents to a file
Thomson Reuters · read September 18, 2026
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/help/filecabinet-cs/printing/sending_documents_to_a_file
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Send to Email Recipient or Send to File Location dialog [File menu]
Thomson Reuters · read September 18, 2026
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/help/filecabinet-cs/printing/hidd_sendto