Loss of formatting when emailing a AW6 ASCIII Text document

Question

Background: I have taken an .xls email file from a PC user which I was able to open with icExcel. The .xls file was set up wrong---only two columns, surname in one and all other data (street address, city, state, zip, tel., email address) in another column. I created a spreadsheet file in icExcel AWorks6 and did a lot of cutting and pasting from the original file to create a true 7 column spreadsheet. I saved it as an ASCII Text document because my intent is to email it back to the PC user.
Now the dilemma---I can take that ASCII Text document and reopen it in an AW6 spreadsheet or into a database on my computer, no problems. Everything is formatted correctly. When I email the .txt document as an attachment to myself (experimenting first before emailing it to the PC user) it opens up automatically as a word processing document with all the formatting gone. I sent it to another of my email addresses, it did not open up automatically but the attachment came across as an HTTP text unix document file. What is happening to the structure and column formatting when I email the .txt document. What am I doing wrong following putting it into ASCII Text? Help please!! CAB
Mac mini Intel/iBook G3   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   Mac OSX (10.3.5) for iBook
Mac mini Intel/iBook G3   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   Mac OSX (10.3.5) for iBook

Answer 1

When you save an AppleWorks spreadsheet as text, you get a tab delimited file.
Data in each cell is followed by a tab character, and a return character separates the rows of data.
Your text file, opened into an AppleWorks WP document, should retain the tab characters, but will not display properly unless you have set tab stops in the ruler. AppleWorks defaults to a tab stop every half inch, and a tab character will push text to the next available stop. Variable length of data will cause data that should line up in the same column to be offset.
You can check for the presence of tabs (and other invisible characters) by pressing command-; (semi colon). Pressing the same keys again toggles the display off.
Try launching AppleWorks then specifying Spreadsheet as the document type when you open it using AW's Open dialogue (File > Open).
If you are successful, then the file should be openable by the PC user, using Excel. Three other notes: Be sure you check the Send Windows friendly attachments box in Mail when attaching the file. Be sure you add the .txt extension to the file name AppleWorks does not automatically add it). Tell the Windows user that the file is a tab delimited text file.
Regards,
Barry