Here's a little bash script I just made to help me to view files. I like to use "cat -A" to see the tabs, carriage returns, spaces at ends of lines, etc. I think there is no "less -A" so usually do this: cat -A file | less But it would be even cooler with color, so I came up with the script below to color things up a little -- in order: tab is ^I in bold red, carriage return is ^M in bold green, end of line is a bold blue dollar sign, and spaces are magenta periods. Other control characters should appear in reverse video because I use less -R to show the colors properly (for older versions of less, if "less -R" doesn't work, use "less -r"). I call the script "less-A". It can read stdout or take a filename argument. Mike #!/bin/bash # Usage: # # less-A filename # cat filename | less-A perl -pe 's/\t/\033[31m\033[1m^I\033[0m/g ; \ s/\r/\033[32m\033[1m^M\033[0m/g ; \ s/\n/\033[34m\033[1m\$\033[0m\n/ ; \ s/ /\033[35m.\033[0m/g' "$1" | less -R