Save text for Windows

[Greg Reyna]

What's the best way to save a text file that's meant to be opened on
a Windows machine? I want to preserve the formatting of a simple
text file with spaces, tabs and new lines.

thanks,
Greg Reyna

[Bill Rowe]

Post by Greg Reyna
What's the best way to save a text file that's meant to be opened on
a Windows machine? I want to preserve the formatting of a simple
text file with spaces, tabs and new lines.

First, replace all tabs with an appropriate number of spaces.
This avoids issues with tab settings reflecting a different
number of spaces in different clients.

Set the line endings to be consistent with Windows (CRLF)

[Doug McNutt]

Post by Greg Reyna
What's the best way to save a text file that's meant to be opened on
a Windows machine? I want to preserve the formatting of a simple
text file with spaces, tabs and new lines.

First, replace all tabs with an appropriate number of spaces. This avoids issues with tab settings reflecting a different number of spaces in different clients.

If you do that be sure it still looks OK in BBEdit. And be sure you add something that insures that the Windoze user will know to use a monospaced font.

Non-programmers will use a text processing program that allows for tab settings that vary across a line the way a mechanical typewriter works. If you have used multiple tab characters to move between columns when some are shorter - text wise - you have a problem that BBEdit may not handle. Replacing \t\t+ with \t in grep mode might work but it depends on software at the destination. MS-Excel, for instance, demands single tab characters between columns and has a terrible time with added spaces when the text has spaces inside the contents of a column.

Set the line endings to be consistent with Windows (CRLF)

That's approved. The choice is a button at the very bottom of each document window. But a lot of destination software doesn't really care.

If the recipient needs only to read the text with his eyeballs consider "printing" to PDF.
--
--> From the U S of A, the only socialist country that refuses to admit it. <--

[Greg Reyna]

Thanks guys, I thought a Times font would be the same on either
platform but probably not, then the columns won't line up. PDF
didn't even occur to me; I think that's the safest approach for
readability. I'll send it both ways, then he can see the doc the way
it's supposed to look, and re-arrange the text if need be. He uses
Notepad for text files.
Greg

Post by Doug McNutt

Post by Greg Reyna
What's the best way to save a text file that's meant to be opened on
a Windows machine? I want to preserve the formatting of a simple
text file with spaces, tabs and new lines.

First, replace all tabs with an appropriate number of spaces. This
avoids issues with tab settings reflecting a different number of
spaces in different clients.

If you do that be sure it still looks OK in BBEdit. And be sure you
add something that insures that the Windoze user will know to use a
monospaced font.
Non-programmers will use a text processing program that allows for
tab settings that vary across a line the way a mechanical typewriter
works. If you have used multiple tab characters to move between
columns when some are shorter - text wise - you have a problem that
BBEdit may not handle. Replacing \t\t+ with \t in grep mode might
work but it depends on software at the destination. MS-Excel, for
instance, demands single tab characters between columns and has a
terrible time with added spaces when the text has spaces inside the
contents of a column.

Set the line endings to be consistent with Windows (CRLF)

That's approved. The choice is a button at the very bottom of each
document window. But a lot of destination software doesn't really
care.
If the recipient needs only to read the text with his eyeballs
consider "printing" to PDF.
--
--> From the U S of A, the only socialist country that refuses to admit it. <--
--
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