Cannot Suppress Blank Space Using Q&A for MS-DOS as Data File

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 6.0, 6.0a

SYMPTOMS

When you use an ASCII text file created in Q&A 4.0 for MS-DOS (comma- delimited, with quotation marks around each field) as a data document, Word for Windows may fail to suppress blank spaces.

CAUSE

When you save in ASCII text format, the Q&A 4.0 for MS-DOS application inserts a space between the quotation marks (") in blank fields. Word inserts this space as the contents of the field; in other words, Word considers this field to be non-blank.

This problem does not occur if you save the Q&A 4.0 file in dBASEIII or dBASEIV file format.

Note: Word version 2.x for Windows ignores the space in a Q&A 4.0 ASCII text file, so this problem does not occur in Word 2.x.

WORKAROUNDS

Method 1: If you want to use a Q&A 4.0 for MS-DOS ASCII text file as your

          data document, use the Replace command on the Edit menu in Word
          to remove the extraneous spaces from the file.

          instead of ASCII text format. In Word, attach the data document
          by using ODBC.