How Do I Save an ASCII Text File?

Question

How Do I Save an ASCII Text File?

In the Windoze world, Notepad is a simple editor that saves text strictly in ASCII format. Clean, not embellishments or tags. Sometimes it needs to be that way.

What do I use to save ASCII text on a Mac? Somebody at the Apple store told me the answer is TextEdit, but when I went to save a file just now my choices were rich text (.rtf), HTML, Word format, or XML. No ASCII in the bunch.

So, is there a program on here that does what Notepad does? Is there one out there somewhere...??

--PS

MacBook 2.16-GHz, 2GB-RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.10), After 28 years of DOS and Windows... a Mac.

Posted on Jul 26, 2007 10:23 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Fortuny

Level 7

21,461 points

Jul 27, 2007 12:14 AM in response to Paul Schatzkin1

Hi,

usually TextEdit is my first choice for Plain Text also.
To get it in Textedit, use Format - Convert To plain Text before starting to write anything.
When you then want to save the text, you are getting to save plain-text files with the .txt extensions.

Regards

Stefan

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Answer 2

Jul 27, 2007 4:52 PM in response to Fortuny

Too many steps. I just want to open a program, type or paste in the text, and save it as ASCII. I don't want to have to change any settings or designate any files types. Just open, type, and save.

Next player?

--PS

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Answer 3

Aug 11, 2007 6:28 AM in response to Fortuny

I forgot to mention, that this can also be set in the Preferences of Textedit to be the default setting:
use plain text; add .txt extension when saving.

I think that's all I needed to hear -- I've looked at the preferences for TextEdit and set them the way I think I want them.

Thanks,

--PS

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Answer 4

Jul 28, 2007 5:00 PM in response to Paul Schatzkin1

After you type/paste into TextEdit, use the Shift-Cmd-T combination to change it to ASCII format with a text extension.

Have a nice day.

Boyd

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Answer 5

Jul 27, 2007 5:12 PM in response to Paul Schatzkin1

Hi,
how about this one?

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15804

Tell us, whether it does what you need.

Ludwig

EDIT: Ouch, I just realised it's NOT freeware. Well…

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Answer 6

Jul 28, 2007 5:02 PM in response to Paul Schatzkin1

I'd just use vi.

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Answer 7

Fortuny

Level 7

21,461 points

Jul 30, 2007 5:17 AM in response to Paul Schatzkin1

Hi,

I forgot to mention, that this can also be set in the Preferences of Textedit to be the default setting:
use plain text; add .txt extension when saving.

Stefan