Tabs in MS-Word (was 'What's in a tab?'

[Carl Distefano CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from rrr@xxxxxxxx (Rene von Rentzell)
 Tue, 30 Sep 97 11:45:44 +0000

I know nothing about Word, but ... On the face of it, it seems
unlikely that Word is choking on an ordinary tab (1-byte Ascii-9).
Out of curiosity, I used Word for Word to convert a Xy doc with tabs
into Word formats (Word 6 and WinWord). As far as I could see
(using LIST.COM), there was no translation of tabs: Ascii-9's were
ported intact.

Perhaps your client could describe WinWord's distaste for these
characters in more detail. What behavior occurs? Does it apply to
all tabs, or just some? Is the problem limited to tabs, or does it
occur elsewhere as well?

You might do well to verify that your "trusty old tab code" is
indeed a 1-byte Ascii-9 and not, say, a 3-byte tab impostor (Ascii
255+48+57), or something else.

Also, if you're sending your documents to your client over the Net,
the tabs may not be preserved since they're not in the 7-bit range
(Ascii 32-127). Are you using MIME encoding? Perhaps try a
different method, or use a different program to generate the code.

In sum, the problem may be other than it appears.

--------------
Carl Distefano
CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/