ASCII editor clarification <sorry, kind'a long>

[Harry G]

Guess that is what I get for writing an email before caffeine is 
consumed.  Sorry.

Here is the full story.

A court reporter creates a transcript.  It is saved in ASCII format.  
This format needs (at times) to be e mailed to the office, where it can 
be printed and copies made.

The lines are all numbered in the left column.  No changes, i.e. word 
wrapping, spacing, change in the cover page format can be accepted.  No 
further editing is to be done to the document unless the original 
reporter is making a correction.  then it is to be saved in an archive 
for the next 20 plus years (another email another day).  Right now, 
they save hard copies, and thousands of floppies.  This is not a good 
way to save things for such a long time.

Most reporters use either Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, or believe it or 
not, DOS.  Each has a different program they write the report in, but 
they all save in ASCII format.  The office uses Windows for now (I am 
trying to change that) and want to be able to open the doc for the 
above reasons with no changes.

I have opened these files in Windows with Notebook, and Wordpad, but 
they all change things, i.e. the little boxes at the end of each line.  
I have not tried it yet in Linux, and wanted a head start on this 
before I am given a "test" transcript.


By the way, if anyone is looking for a project that is wide open, 
coming up with translating software for court reporters is wide open.  
Right now, only Widows and DOS versions are available for a cost factor 
of anything from $3,000 to $6,000 per user.  (Explains the DOS users).  
This is an outrageous price, in my opinion.  I have no problem with 
charging for software, but this is way out of line.

Obviously, I can barely run my PC let alone do any coding, so if anyone 
is seriously interested, I'll supply all the info I can.


Thanks for reading my boring email. 

Harry G

Harry G