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Convert Document Encoding to ASCII

Description

Section titled “Description”

Rewrites a text file as plain ASCII. This is particularly useful if the source of information has mixed encodings or other tools don’t support certain encodings.

How It Works

Section titled “How It Works”
  • The source’s encoding is detected. A UTF-8 file is read as UTF-8, and Windows characters pasted into one — curly quotes from Word or Excel, say — come through intact, however many. A file in another encoding is read in the encoding detected from its first part that isn’t valid UTF-8.
  • Accented letters keep their base letter (café becomes cafe), and characters with no ASCII form are dropped.
  • A line holding only a double quote is joined to the end of the line before it.
  • A file whose encoding cannot be detected fails the step, naming the file.
  • If the input path does not exist or has no files in it, the step finishes with a warning that names the path and processes nothing, and the workflow continues.

Examples

Section titled “Examples”

Select the input file and browse for the file within that location. Select the desired output location, and browse to select the desired location for the file. Save and run.