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Switch (6 posts)
Aug-11-01, 07:59 PM (EST) "Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" When I open up the .eng files etc. in Wordpad to edit them all the lines of text are spaced out with a square or box between each character that makes it very difficult to read and makes me very leery of making changes since the lines are all over the place. I haven't seen any mention of this anywhere else and assume others don't have this problem and are just seeing normal lines of text. Is there something I can do to get rid of the squares?eager to get editing
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Problem with square characters ... dgauci Aug-11-01 1 RE: Problem with square characters ... JMSteven_W98 Aug-11-01 2 RE: Problem with square characters ... jdwall Aug-11-01 3 RE: Problem with square characters ... Switch Aug-12-01 4 RE: Problem with square characters ... JMSteven_W98 Aug-12-01 5 RE: Problem with square characters ... Switch Aug-12-01 6 RE: Problem with square characters ... JMSteven_W98 Aug-12-01 7 RE: Problem with square characters ... Switch Aug-13-01 8 RE: Problem with square characters ... C_2000 Aug-13-01 9 RE: Problem with square characters ... Switch Aug-13-01 10 RE: Problem with square characters ... Zed Aug-13-01 11 RE: Problem with square characters ... Switch Aug-14-01 12

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dgauci (111 posts)
Aug-11-01, 09:12 PM (EST) 1. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" LAST EDITED ON Aug-11-01 AT 09:16 PM (EST)>When I open up the .eng
>files etc. in Wordpad to
>edit them all the lines
>of text are spaced out
>with a square or box
>between each character that makes
>it very difficult to read
>and makes me very leery
>of making changes since the
>lines are all over the
>placeWhat you are describing is NOT normal, it sounds a lot more like what you would see if you opened the files in Notepad instead of WordPad. The squares and boxes you are seeing are the Unicode characters that are not being interpreted correctly. My advice would be to not edit or save any of the files until you find out why WordPad is not recognizing the Unicode characters correctly.
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JMSteven_W98 (275 posts)
Aug-11-01, 10:39 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Make sure the ENG file type or the DAT file type is not associated with WordPad by default until you know that your software is working properly.One mistake a few people make is to double-click a filename in the Windows Explorer and wait for the useless "Open with" dialog box. That's a great way to get into trouble if you don't realize many programs support six or more "default" file types.Use the "details" view and avoid using the Icon view when there are unknown file types.WordPad has a very bad habit of appending the ".TXT" extension to any Unicode file. It usually starts with a user selecting "Save as" and not reading the whole common dialog box.So my advice is:
1) In the Windows Explorer, select the "details" view so you can see what the file type "ENG" or "DAT" are linked with.
2) In the Windows Explorer, use the "View" menu -> Folder Options entry. Select the "View" property sheet tab and make sure the options include "SHOW ALL FILES".
3) You may also want to select "Show extensions for hidden and registered" file types so you can see if the file is really named "SD90.ENG" or "SD90.ENG.txt".
4) If the files turn out to be "TXT" types:
a) Rename the file by removing the .txt part. Windows may complain about not being able to open the file, but ignore it.
b) Start WordPad. Do not use the "Start Menu" shortcut and don't look for the file. Press the START button, select RUN and type in "Wordpad" and press ENTER.
c) Use File Open in WordPad to retrieve one of the route REF files or one of the ENG files. Just open the file then exit Word Pad.
d) Let me know the results.
Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jdwall (3 posts)
Aug-11-01, 11:41 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Thanks Jim. I had the same problem but following your instructions worked. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Switch (6 posts)
Aug-12-01, 01:44 AM (EST) 4. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Thanks Jim and dgauci.Jim- re: your advice, I already had explorer set to details view with "Show All Files" checked. I don't have the "show extensions for hidden and registered" on the View tab (I'm using W95 - maybe thats W98 only?) but the files aren't associated with Wordpad as far as I can tell and are still showing the .eng extension. I had been opening them up by right clicking and choosing "Open with" and then selecting Wordpad but I didn't check "Always use this program.." etc. When I open the .eng file in Wordpad the way you described I am still getting the unicode boxes. Any further suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks a lotSwitch Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (275 posts)
Aug-12-01, 12:42 PM (EST) 5. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Let's look at how many Microsoft Visual C Runtime DLL's you may have on the system. This file comes with many products, but there should only be ONE in the system search path.Use "Find Files or Folders" in the Windows Explorer.Set the file name to MSVCRT.DLLSet the find path to search to include all hard drives on the system or type them in like this C:\;D:\;E:\Make sure the subdirectory check box is also set.The results should be only ONE file. If you have more than one, we must check which one is in memory.First use the "START" button and select "RUN"Type this in the RUN command line:%ComSpec%There IS a percent symbol at both ends. That ensures the command interpreter we select is the one the system used for booting.If you typed "COMMAND.COM" or selected the "MS-DOS Prompt" in the start menu, that does NOT guarantee the command interpreter's environment you launch matches the one the system used at start up. It would use a Post-Boot environment that would not be valid.In the command window, type the word PATH and press ENTER.Compare the list with the Find Files or Folders list to see how many directories in the PATH list contain an MSVCRT.DLL file.For instance, on one of my test systems, I have two folders with different versions. One is version 6.10.8637.0 and one is version 5.00.7303. (The old one is for the game Unreal Tournament)If the 5.x DLL were loaded instead of 6.1 most new features in Internet Explorer 6.10 would not work, but I'd still be able to browse the internet.If the 6.x DLL were loaded instead of the 5.x one, the Unreal Tournament game would be unstable and probably would use a special "Safe Video Mode" in the game.Normally Windows uses the file in the %windir%\System32 folder, but on some Windows 9x releases, it uses the file in %windir% and with Win ME, it may use %windir%\system.To see which file is actually in memory, run the MSINFO32 utility from the Start menu.Look at "32-Bit Modules loaded" and find the MSVCRT.DLL in the list.I'm still working at MS today, but will be going home for awhile to rest. I'll check this message board for your results.Jim Steven, MCSE
Sr Microsoft Windows Application Developer Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Switch (6 posts)
Aug-12-01, 05:31 PM (EST) 6. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" OK, I searched for MSVCRT.DLL as you described and found I have 10(!), from things like other games (UT as you mnetion (it runs fine though) and Serious Sam), one with my scanner OCR software, one with sound card driver, Tools 95 etc. The first one in the "find files etc." list though is C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM. I checked MSINFO32 and under "Active Modules" that is the one that's listed (MSVCRT, v.6.1.8293.0, 11 Jul 99 00:39, size: 278581, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\, MSVCRT.DLL) and what appears to be that one (same version etc.) is listed in System DLLs as Loaded:"Yes".
In the PATH list I get PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND which doesn't refer to any of the MSVCRT.DLLs I have. (Maybe this is the problem?)Thanks againSwitch Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
JMSteven_W98 (275 posts)
Aug-12-01, 08:38 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" I have source code for most MS applications, so I just created a special build of WordPad that only understands the UNICODE file format:
I created a sample document using that build and saved the file.Windows NT's Notepad application recognized the file as a UNICODE document.Anyway, the document was compressed into a ZIP file so uploading it to this board would not modify the file content.Here's the URL for the ZIP file:
http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/3b7720bc05f0e36f.zip Please retrieve the ZIP file, save it locally and expand the file named "UNICODE.UNI" it contains.I was hoping the file extension was not in use so that would prevent anything on your system from trying to automatically open the document.Run Word Pad and use the "File Open" option to open my document.Let me know the results.Another item that may be worth checking is for you to create a new document in WordPad and save it as Unicode type. You'll need to rename the file afterward since SoftStyle's WordPad implementation hard-codes "TXT" for you.Zip the file up and upload it to this board and tell me the URL. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Switch (6 posts)
Aug-13-01, 00:01 AM (EST) 8. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-01 AT 00:29 AM (EST)OK I downloaded your file and when I opened it in Wpad I can read the text but it looks the same as my .eng files, with squares/boxes between each character and spacing the lines out etc.I'm not sure what you meant by save a file in Wpad as "unicode". Do you mean just as a .txt file? I looked around a bit in FAQs etc. but still don't know how to upload a file to the board. If you still want to see one can you let me know how to upload it and I'll do it. For what its worth I saved a few lines of text as a .txt document in Wpad, changed the extension to .uni, then opened it again in Wpad and it looked normal. Don't know if that means much.Switch Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
C_2000 (12 posts)
Aug-13-01, 04:19 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Alright, I'm not a programmer, and please don't flame me if this is just off the wall, but could those square chars result from using a font that doesn't have a complete character set? What happens if you Ctrl-A (select all) and change the font face to, say, Arial?~Chris Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Switch (6 posts)
Aug-13-01, 06:10 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" I tried that early on before I posted about this but I get the same problem in other fonts. The default is Courier but its the same in Arial and Times New Roman. Thanks for the suggestion though.Switch Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Zed (62 posts)
Aug-13-01, 06:58 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" I have Windows 98 and can edit eng files with WordPad. I also have a machine running Windows 95B and when I try to edit an eng file on it, I get the same problem. When I choose File->Save As, the file types available to save the document as are Word for Windows 6.0, Rich Text Format, Text Document, and Text Document MS-DOS Format, but no Unicode. What this means is that Windows 95 WordPad does not support unicode files.I have found a simple free (non-commerial use) editor that will support Unicode files:http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.htmlThat might be the easiest solution to your problem. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Switch (6 posts)
Aug-14-01, 00:22 AM (EST) 12. "RE: Problem with square characters editing with Wordpad" Thanks Zed! - I downloaded Editpadlite and when I open the .eng files etc. the text looks the way it should. Have already created a new F7A engine with repaint. It runs fine in "explore route" but when I try to run the specific activity I added it to (Morning Intermodal) it crashes to desktop. Oh well...hopefully thats a separate issue!If anyone else tries Editpadlite note that (from the help file) it can't edit Unicode files directly and converts them to ANSI when it opens them. After you edit you have to convert them from ANSI to Unicode before saving. I kept getting error messages associated with the .eng and .sd files before I clued in to that.I'm surprised I'm the first W95 user who ran into this problem - guess everyone is using W98 or higher (time to upgrade my OS!)Thanks to all who helped and thanks for rolling up your sleeves on this Jim Switch Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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