How to convert Carriage Returns to Line Feeds and vice versa

It is an unfortunate fact of life in the computing industry that the most common computing platforms store text files in subtly different ways. Unix systems use a simple linefeed (Ascii 10), Macintosh Systems use a carriage return (Ascii 13) and Windows/Dos systems use a carriage return AND a linefeed (13, 10). Mostly this difference causes no problems - but occasionally these differences can be enough of a problem to make life difficult. There are two utilities to help convert from one format to another. I have outlined how to use them below.


To convert a file from UNIX to DOS format do the following steps:
1. Open a terminal and type "su" and then when prompted enter the root password.
2. Type "unix2dos -k "
3. Print the file by typing "lp -d "

To convert a file from DOS to UNIX format do the following steps:
1. Open a terminal and type "su" and then when prompted enter the root password.
2. Type "dos2unix -k "
3. Print the file by typing "lp -d "

Please note that SLE10 does not have the unix2dos utility included. It will be necessary to obtain the rpm from another source. The unix2dos will not be added to future releases because text file conversion tools like iconv and recode already exist in SLE10. These can perform the same functions as unix2dos and dos2unix.

 

1. Open a terminal and type "su" and then when prompted enter the root password.
2. Type "recode lat1..ibmpc "
3. Print the file by typing "lp -d "
 

 

Note: The two dots are not a typo, that's just 'recode' syntax.