Encoding and exporting text (JS CS3 MAC and PC)

Question

Hi -- I am trying to export text from InDesign as an ASCII file. But I am ending up with a zero K file.
var myX = new File(myTarget);
myX.encoding = "ASCII";
myX.lineFeed = "unix";
myX.open("w");
myX.write(myString);
myX.close();
I have success with this:
var myX = new File(myTarget);
myX.encoding = "UTF-8";
myX.lineFeed = "unix";
myX.open("w");
myX.write("\uFEFF" + myString);
myX.close();
But the person on the other end of the export says I need to convert UTF-8 to ASCII encoding.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

ANSI =/= ASCII
If you have your string in Javascript, all you have to do is kick out all characters with a Unicode greater than 255. For "true" ASCII you also have to ditch all 8-bit characters, i.e. everything above code 127. It's straightforward to replace them with a '?'; you could make it nicer by replacing them with "acceptable" replacements for the most common characters, such as a straight double quote instead of double curlies, remove accents from Latin-1 characters, replacing en and em dashes with hyphens, etc. Even replacing the ellipsis with "..." wouldn't do no harm. But you're going to have to make some compromises.
Is your client really okay with you sending "processed" text? Depending on what goes in, the output may or may not resemble anything coherent anymore. Imagine a phrase in Greek.
>There are some utf-8 characters they cannot handle.
Wot nonsense. "Some"!? It's All or Nothing, I'd say. If they send you a list of those they can, or cannot, you could make a better translation.
>..  notes ..
Wait, you have notes -- as in "footnotes"? That concept simply does not exist in ASCII, ANSI, or for that matter, in UTF-8.