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Thread: DOS Ascii TXT files (7bit to 8bit conversion)

  1. Jan 5th, 2001, 09:14 PM #1
    Jareware
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    I'm having a bit of a problem, maybe you can help...

    Do you happen to know what would be the best way to convert a whole bunch of old 7bit DOS TXT files to 8bit files so they could be used in windows. The problem is not that the whole file would be inaccessible, most of the text comes out fine. It's just that there are a few scandinavian special characters (a with dots and o with dots) used and they come out as " and ' or something like those. They are (atleast in MS Word) indistinguishable from double and single quotation marks so FIND and REPLACE won't work. Some kind of conversion is necessary, I suppose (not that familiar with the subject).

    This is pretty urgent, any help would be GREATLY appreciated.


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  2. Jan 6th, 2001, 05:16 AM #2
    parksie
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    I think you can specifically open a file as a DOS text file and it will preserve the 7bit characters.
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  3. Jan 6th, 2001, 01:04 PM #3
    Jareware
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    That's what I thought too, and I think it WAS that way with Word 98 or so, but with 2000, no. They have downgraded the functionality. It's a long story but I'm running out of time with this project. Do you know any other way?


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  4. Jan 7th, 2001, 07:20 AM #4
    Knut
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    If there are special characters (ÖÄÜ) used in the files, they ARE 8 bit, I believe (btw, that's German). These characters are above 127. Could be ASCII versus ANSI?
    If you feel like mailing an example to me, I might come up with a conversion to s.th useable...
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  6. Jan 8th, 2001, 09:38 PM #5
    Jareware
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    Yes, thank you very much, I certainly will.

    Just a sec... It's actually not German, but Scandinavian. I think the story goes like this. In 7bit charset there was no place for ä or ö, so they replaced a few of the most uncommonly used characters with those, so they could fit them in. Now that's causing the problems. But I'll mail you a sample. It's in finnish so it might seem a little strange.


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  7. Jan 10th, 2001, 06:05 AM #6
    Knut
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    you got my mail yet? my mailserver sometimes screws up...
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  8. Jan 10th, 2001, 08:30 PM #7
    Jareware
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    Oh yes, just got it (haven't had time for email lately), I'll check it out right away. I'll probably reply to your email rather than to this message


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