BBEdit text editor for the Mac

Greg Reyna | 18 May 2008 21:26

Save text for Windows

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

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Bill Rowe | 18 May 2008 21:53

Re: Save text for Windows

On 5/18/08 at 12:26 PM, greyna <at> socal.rr.com (Greg Reyna) wrote:

>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)

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Doug McNutt | 19 May 2008 01:12

Re: Save text for Windows

At 12:53 -0700 5/18/08, Bill Rowe wrote:
>On 5/18/08 at 12:26 PM, greyna <at> socal.rr.com (Greg Reyna) wrote:
>
>>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.

Bill Rowe continued:
>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.

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Greg Reyna | 19 May 2008 06:49

Re: Save text for Windows

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

>At 12:53 -0700 5/18/08, Bill Rowe wrote:
>>On 5/18/08 at 12:26 PM, greyna <at> socal.rr.com (Greg Reyna) wrote:
>>
>>>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

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