Open a text file

Text-only files do not contain graphics or formatting information. When you open a text-only file, you are asked to confirm that it is a text file.

  1. Choose File > Open, and open a .txt file. The Unknown File Type dialog box appears.

  2. Select the Text option.

  3. Click Convert.

  4. Select one of the following options:

    • To break the text into paragraphs only at blank lines, select Merge Lines Into Paragraphs. Use this option for a paragraph-oriented text file, such as a file containing document text.

    • To break the text into paragraphs at the end of each line, select Treat Each Line As A Paragraph. Use this option for a line-oriented text file, such as a file containing computer code.

    • To convert the text into a table, select the Convert Text To Table. Use this option if the content of your source file is tabulated.

      Select additional options in the Convert To Table dialog box, such as number of columns, cell separators, and heading rows, to obtain the data in the appropriate tabular form.

  5. Select the desired Encoding scheme. By default, the ANSI (Windows) encoding scheme is selected.

  6. Click Read. The text appears in a document that is created from a special template. You can customize the template so that documents created from text files are formatted differently.