# How do I access this text file?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-access-this-text-file/942037>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 13, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-access-this-text-file/942037 "2021-05-13T20:26:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 22

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**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2021, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-access-this-text-file/942037/22 "2021-05-14T18:41:52Z")

</div>

Here’s something you can try. It’s an online character dump. You upload the file and it shows what each byte is. Upload your file here:

[https://www.fileformat.info/tool/hexdump.htm](https://www.fileformat.info/tool/hexdump.htm)

You’ll see output that looks like this:

```auto
0000-02a0: 66 20 74 68-65 20 77 61-74 65 72 20-6f 6e 20 41 f.the.wa ter.on.A
0000-02b0: 75 67 75 73-74 20 37 74-68 20 61 6e-64 20 74 68 ugust.7t h.and.th
0000-02c0: 65 20 6e 65-77 20 6f 77-6e 65 72 20-77 69 6c 6c e.new.ow ner.will
0000-02d0: 20 73 74 61-72 74 20 68-65 72 20 61-63 63 6f 75 .start.h er.accou
```

What it shows is this:

- First column: The offset of the file in hex
- Middle column: The hex values of the bytes in the file
- Last column: The text representation of the bytes

The numbers will look weird since they are in hex. Hex is a number system commonly used in computers. It goes from 1-16 rather than 1-10. But you can just look at the last column to see what characters are in the file. Sometimes if a byte at the beginning gets messed up it causes the text processing to get messed up. Having a zero or certain control characters might do it. The hex dump should allow you to see each and every character in the file from beginning to end.

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