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

Question

Hello, and thank you for reading.

I'm making a .bat file and i'd like it to write ASCII-Art into a txt 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 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(wich is mostly the case).

Can someone help me figure out how to open the text file in a certain program (i.e. WordPad) or how to write a proper space character to the file?

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EDIT:

Ty all, awesome site and realy fast answers! 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 e.g. Instead of

type source.txt > Destination.Txt

which will copy source to destination, overwriting destination in the process, you can

type source.txt >> Destination.Txt

which will append to destination

Answer 3

Maybe this is what you want?

echo foo > test.txt
echo. >> test.txt
echo bar >> test.txt

results in the following within test.txt:

foo

bar

Answer 4

echo "text to echo" > file.txt