Can I change how control characters are displayed?

[leevih123]

Hi! I’m very much not tech savvy, so even after hours of googling, I can’t seem to crack this problem I have.

So! I have this file, from where I’m supposed to find “handles” (strings of letters and numbers) that correspond to certain text. My file is supposed to look like something like this

As you can see, on the top of that image, there is a handle (highlighted) and after it a text that corresponds to it. However, if I search that file for text on my PC, the handle part looks like this

And the part with the text like this.

It’s impossible to find handles corresponding to certain text when the file looks like that, so I’d like to change it if possible. I think my problem lies somewhere in the control characters, but I’m not sure what I can do about that?

For some extra information, the file is supposed to open with Windows (CRLF) and UTF-8 with BOM encoding. For me, it opened with Unic (LF) and ANSI. I Converted those to the Windows (CRLF) and UTF-8 with BOM but nothing about how the file looked changed. Not sure if this information is relevant.

Here’s my debug info (with path and command line removed), if necessary:

Notepad++ v8.6 (64-bit)
Build time : Nov 23 2023 - 16:58:44
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.3803
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins :
mimeTools (2.9)
NppConverter (4.5)
NppExport (0.4)

[Coises]

@leevih123 said in Can I change how control characters are displayed?:

I have this file, from where I’m supposed to find “handles” (strings of letters and numbers) that correspond to certain text. My file is supposed to look like something like this

[…]
However, if I search that file for text on my PC, the handle part looks like this

And the part with the text like this.

[…]
I think my problem lies somewhere in the control characters

I don’t think that is your problem. I think the file in which you “are supposed to find handles” is not the same as “that file […] on my PC.”

The first screenshot you showed looks like an XML file. The second screenshot looks like a binary file. You’ll need to ask people who know something about the program that created the file on your PC to find out what program you should use to get the file in the first screenshot from the file in the second screenshot. Notepad++ (or any text editor) cannot do that.

[leevih123]

@Coises Hmm, to my knowledge the first screenshot used the exact same file as I did and just opened it in notepad, but I’ll look into that. Thank you for your help!