Hi Lawrence,

"...the real problem is that there are several lines of continuous text
with little obvious structure."

Thanks for mentioning this. As has been suggested, the problem means
that 'guide.dat' is being written with each line ending in a line feed
(standard on Unix and Linux systems), rather than with a carriage return/
line feed (used, sometimes but not always, on DOS/Windows) or a carriage return
only (used on Macs).

_Most_ text editors written in the last ten years or so will handle this
difference so that you'll never even know it exists. Notepad, annoyingly
enough, is an exception. (Notepad also hasn't even been updated to handle
large files.) Every now and then, someone will ask why they can't read
file X using Notepad, and I revise file X to be in DOS/Windows form.
Not many editors have problems with that.

-- Bill