VX Search allows one to integrate external content extraction or file format conversion tools in the file search operations. The user is provided with the ability to specify which external tools, commands or script files to execute for which file extensions and then configure one or more text patterns to search in the output generated by the configured external tools.

In order to configure a file search operation to use an external tool, open the search dialog, select the 'Meta Search' rule type and press the 'Edit Rule' button. On the 'Meta Search' rule dialog, press the 'Add' button in the top view and specify one or more file extensions to process and a custom command to execute for each file with the specified file extensions.

Once finished configuring file extensions and custom commands, press the 'Add' button in the bottom view and specify one or more text patterns to search in the output generated by the configured custom commands. During runtime, VX Search will scan the specified input directories, process all the existing files, execute the configured commands for each file with the specified file extensions and search for the user-specified text patterns in the output generated by the executed custom commands.