RichTextBox not showing formfeed character

Question

I have a text file that, when I open it in Notepad, shows the form feed character (byte 12). I want to show this character in my richtextbox but no matter which encoding I use when I read the text file it won't show. When I enter the character myself it shows. When I do myRTB.Text = "♀" it shows, but when I do

myRTB.Text = File.ReadAllText(myFileName.txt);

it doesn't show. I've also tried using the readers in the Encoding class to no avail.

How can I show the form feed character in my rtb?

Damith · Answer 1 · 2014-04-17T04:40:37.303

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try with ReadAllText

myRTB.Text = File.ReadAllText(myFileName.txt, Encoding.Unicode);

edited Apr 17 '14 at 04:40

answered Apr 17 '14 at 04:29

Damith

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Dang, it doesn't like `Encoding.Unicode` or any other Encoding type. It says Invalid File Format – user2320861 Apr 17 '14 at 04:55
have you try with `myRTB.LoadFile("myFileName.txt", RichTextBoxStreamType.PlainText);` – Damith Apr 17 '14 at 05:01
Yeah, it didn't like how the file was formatted or it didn't include the form feed character, or it gave me Chinese. – user2320861 Apr 17 '14 at 05:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '14 at 04:33

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Firstly, a line feed has a value of 13. If you have characters with the value 12 in there then they are not line feeds.

As for your issue, ReadAllLines reads the lines of a file into a String array, thus stripping out all the line breaks. You might do as Damith suggests and call ReadAllText, which reads the file contents as a single String, and assign the result to the Text property or else call ReadAllLines and assign the result to the Lines property. Better to call LoadFile on the RichTextBox itself though.

answered Apr 17 '14 at 04:33

jmcilhinney

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Sorry, I got line feed and form feed confused. Actually line feed is 10, and form feed is 12. (Asciitable.com) I'll edit my post. I tried LoadFile but it doesn't like my file format. – user2320861 Apr 17 '14 at 04:43
B*gger! I always get carriage return and line feed mixed up. What a couple of silly billies we are. ;-) With regards to your file format, I take it that it's not RTF. In that case you must use the overload that lets you specify a `RichTextBoxStreamType`. Make sure to use an appropriate value based on your encoding. – jmcilhinney Apr 17 '14 at 04:51

user2320861 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-17T05:11:43.370

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Thanks for the help @jmcilhinney and @Damith. I ended up cheating the system by doing a dirty. I saw that myRTB was replacing the form feed char with \page in the RTF, but when I typed the form feed char myself it put \u9792. Therefore I went with the hack:

myRTB.Rtf = myRTB.Rtf.Replace("\\page", "\\u9792");

If you have something less hackish that I can get working please let me know.

edited Apr 17 '14 at 05:11

answered Apr 17 '14 at 05:01

user2320861

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RichTextBox not showing formfeed character

3 Answers3