st: Re: word processor is not a text editor

[Kit Baum <kitbaum@mac.com>]

--On Friday, February 21, 2003 2:33 -0500 Alan wrote:

> The best advice, as given by others, is not to use a word
> processor as a text editor.  If one is used, however, then
> such features as "smart quotes" should be turned off, and
> extra care must be taken to save the file in a plain ASCII
> format.
Agree strongly with the first line, and posters who remind us of this.
Note that with recent versions of Word, even getting a straight ASCII file 
is sometimes difficult--Word likes to save in UTF-8 (a special form of 
Unicode), and the initial bytemark will choke any program that does not 
expect to see Unicode coming in. My preferred text editor (BBEdit, 
www.barebones.com) can certainly save as Unicode, and UTF-8, and probably 
EBCDIC for all I know; but when you ask it to save a file, it assumes 
ASCII, and that's what Stata wants to see.

Kit
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