Add a new line to a text file in MS-DOS

Question

I am making a .bat file, and I would like it to write ASCII art into a text file.

I was able to find the command to append a new line to the file when echoing text, but when I read that text file, all I see is a layout-sign and not a space. I think it would work by opening that file with Word or even WordPad, but I would like it to work on any computer, even if that computer only has Notepad (which is mostly the case).

How can I open the text file in a certain program (i.e. WordPad) or write a proper space character to the file?

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EDIT:

I found that it is the best way to use:

echo <line1> > <filename> echo <line2> >> <filename> 

P.S. I used | in my ASCII art, so it crashed, Dumb Dumb Dumb :)

Answer 1

echo Hello, > file.txt echo.       >>file.txt echo world  >>file.txt 

and you can always run:

wordpad file.txt 

on any version of Windows.

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On Windows 2000 and above you can do:

( echo Hello, & echo. & echo world ) > file.txt 

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Another way of showing a message for a small amount of text is to create file.vbs containing:

Msgbox "Hello," & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "world", 0, "Message" 

Call it with

cscript /nologo file.vbs 

Or use wscript if you don't need it to wait until they click OK.

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The problem with the message you're writing is that the vertical bar (|) is the "pipe" operator. You'll need to escape it by using ^| instead of |.

P.S. it's spelled Pwned.

Answer 2

You can easily append to the end of a file, by using the redirection char twice (>>).

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This will copy source.txt to destination.txt, overwriting destination in the process:

type source.txt > destination.txt 

This will copy source.txt to destination.txt, appending to destination in the process:

type source.txt >> destination.txt