HI Bill,

So the simple solution is to use the Guide 9 EXTRAS/ADD MPC COMETS&ASTEROIDS/DOWNLOAD UPDATED COMET DATA.  This did fetch/update the Soft02cm.txt file you referred to as Soft02Cmt.txt in a current email to Ted.  Is this text file what Guide uses directly as the comet data file?

Just did that.  Don't know where Guide will clue me that the orbital elements were published
on MPEC 2017-C71.  But Soft02cmt.txt is showing as being downloaded today.

And I'm not sure what files we're dealing with or where Soft02cm.txt comes from.  The MPC downloads do have a CometElx.txt that may be downloaded.  Would one normally download this and rename it as a .dat file if the observatory network link were down and I had to carry data on a flash drive?

Thanks for your patience Bill.

Pete