ASCII Character Table

• Introduction
• Control Characters
• Displayable Characters
• Filename Forbidden Characters

Introduction:

ASCII is the standard format for plain text editors such as Notepad, which comes with Windows. It associates each value between 0 and 127 with a character. (This is not necessarily true of word processors, which offer fancier features like bold, italics, and a choice of fonts.)

Control Characters:

Characters 0-31 (0x00-0x1F) are control characters that are not directly displayable. Most are no longer used. Notable exceptions are:

    Dec     Hex     Char
    08      08      Backspace
    09      09      Tab
    10      0A      Line Feed
    13      0D      Carriage Return

Displayable Characters:

The following are displayable ASCII characters:

    Dec     Hex     Char
    32      20     (space)
    33      21       !
    34      22       "
    35      23       #
    36      24       $
    37      25       %
    38      26       &
    39      27       '
    40      28       (
    41      29       )
    42      2A       *
    43      2B       +
    44      2C       ,
    45      2D       -
    46      2E       .
    47      2F       /
    48      30       0
    49      31       1
    50      32       2
    51      33       3
    52      34       4
    53      35       5
    54      36       6
    55      37       7
    56      38       8
    57      39       9
    58      3A       :
    59      3B       ;
    60      3C       <
    61      3D       =
    62      3E       >
    63      3F       ?
    64      40       @
    65      41       A
    66      42       B
    67      43       C
    68      44       D
    69      45       E
    70      46       F
    71      47       G
    72      48       H
    73      49       I
    74      4A       J
    75      4B       K
    76      4C       L
    77      4D       M
    78      4E       N
    79      4F       O
    80      50       P
    81      51       Q
    82      52       R
    83      53       S
    84      54       T
    85      55       U
    86      56       V
    87      57       W
    88      58       X
    89      59       Y
    90      5A       Z
    91      5B       [
    92      5C       \
    93      5D       ]
    94      5E       ^
    95      5F       _
    96      60       `
    97      61       a
    98      62       b
    99      63       c
    100     64       d
    101     65       e
    102     66       f
    103     67       g
    104     68       h
    105     69       i
    106     6A       j
    107     6B       k
    108     6C       l
    109     6D       m
    110     6E       n
    111     6F       o
    112     70       p
    113     71       q
    114     72       r
    115     73       s
    116     74       t
    117     75       u
    118     76       v
    119     77       w
    120     78       x
    121     79       y
    122     7A       z
    123     7B       {
    124     7C       |
    125     7D       }
    126     7E       ~
    127     7F     (none)

Filename Forbidden Characters:

The following Bad characters are forbidden in Windows filenames. If a macro attempts to open or save a file using using one of these characters, it will be replaced by the alternate given in the Alt column:

    Dec     Hex     Bad     Alt
    34      22       "       '
    42      2A       *       # (see Notes below)
    47      2F       /       -
    60      3C       <       (
    62      3E       >       )
    63      3F       ?       ^ (see Notes below)
    58      3A       :       % (see Notes below)
    92      5C       \      & (see Notes below)
    124     7C       |       $

Notes: Colon and backslash are allowed in file paths, but not in the name portion. (Since the backslash marks a directory level, it effectively never appears in the name portion; if attempted, it specifies that the prior portion of the name should be regarded as a separate directory level. It is thus never actually replaced.)

Asterisk and question mark are allowed as "wildcards" in the name portion, but only in macro-defined search strings like '*.WAV' or 'Data?.TXT' to be used with file Open or Save dialogs. They can not be used in macros with an A. prefix to automatically load or save a specified file, such as A.Open="MyFile" or A.SaveDQA="MyFile". In such cases they will be replaced with the indicated Alt characters '#' or '^', respectively.

Period and space characters are allowed in file names, but should be used with caution.