# Converting ASCII .txt to something I can work with on a Mac. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085 "2008-06-24T17:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085/21 "2008-06-25T07:06:04Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] I opened a console prompt and tried the ‘old’ command and didn’t get anything. However, googling revealed a [hexdump](http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/hexdump.1.html) command that seems to be quite flexible. [/QUOTE] That should have been od. Damn. I tried it on Solaris, and I know it worked on System V when I was at Bell Labs. Solaris is a descendant of BSD, so it should be okay. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085/22 "2008-06-25T09:43:35Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] That should have been od. Damn. I tried it on Solaris, and I know it worked on System V when I was at Bell Labs. Solaris is a descendant of BSD, so it should be okay. [/QUOTE] There’s a man page for ‘od’ on my Mac. And it works. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085/23 "2008-06-25T14:50:44Z")
[QUOTE=mks57] Unix uses LF (AKA newline or NL). Old Macs use CR. PCs use CR/LF. Aren’t standards wonderful? [/QUOTE] Ah, crap. I just knew I’d get them inverted. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085/24 "2008-06-25T15:56:54Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] There’s a man page for ‘od’ on my Mac. And it works. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Great. But our poor OP is probably mumbling to herself “ask a simple questions and those geeks start speaking in code words.” 🙂 But you’ve given me the first reason I’ve ever seen to buy a Mac some day. I can toss the stupid gui and use command line, like Ghod intended. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085/25 "2008-06-25T16:03:56Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Great. But our poor OP is probably mumbling to herself “ask a simple questions and those geeks start speaking in code words.” 🙂 But you’ve given me the first reason I’ve ever seen to buy a Mac some day. I can toss the stupid gui and use command line, like Ghod intended. [/QUOTE] If you download the TextWrangler editor, it installs command-line tools as well. TextMate does the same: you can type ‘mate \’ at the prompt and it will pop up a new window containing TextMate with \ loaded. Integration between the command line and the GUI. Neat. EMACS is there as well. Some of these may not be installed on an off-the-shelf system; I installed XCode and the developer toolset to get X11 so I could run The Gimp. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-ascii-txt-to-something-i-can-work-with-on-a-mac/454085.md?page=1)