Hi! Everybody, I have a .dat file and I don't know how to open it to make it readable.I have tried to open with MS Wordpad,Word,Notepad eic.but no luck.I hope that somebody can give me some guidelines,suggestions etc. Thank you very much in advance! Matthew.

Hi Matthew. http://forum.japantoday.com/Opening_a_%25DAT_file/m_322738/tm.htm Sometimes when a file travels through AOL it will be changed to a .dat file extension. Try changing the .dat to .txt and open with notepad. Otherwise if you know who sent the file, you could ask them what program they used to create the file, then replace the .dat with whatever extension that program uses. Take care, Linda

Hi again. If opening it as a .txt file in notepad results in gibberish lettering it could be that the file was too large and should have been compressed before sending over the internet. Ask the sender to use a utility such as .zip or .sit or .sea to compress and resend the file. A compressed file is less likely to be altered when traveling through the internet and you will have better luck opening it. Take care, Linda

Hi! Linda,thanks for your quick responses,but how do I change the .dat file to a .txt file into notepad? Pardon my ignorance and thanks again! Matthew.

Mathew Do you know what the file should be? ie: A video file, text file etc?

It's a key #! Matthew

Hi Matthew. To change the name of the file - Gently click on the file name ( don't click too hard and don't double click or it will try to open the file ). The background of the file name should be highlighted; such as a blue color. Place your mouse pointer after the last letter in the name, in this case the t in .dat. Gently click again so your mouse pointer becomes a flashing line next to the t. Gently click a third time. The colored background will disappear and you will be able to type the change you wish to make. Use the backspace key to erase the letters you want to change, in this case the dat. Don't erase the period in front of the d. Think of the letters in front of the period as the first name of the file and the 3 letters after the period as the last name of the file. ( The 3 letters is called the extension and the extension tells the computer which program that file belongs to and which program will open it. ) After erasing the dat, type txt After changing the name of the file, click outside the file to deselect it. Then you can try to open it in notepad since notepad reads files with the .txt extension. If it is gibberish, then the file is probably not a text file and you will have to try typing another 3 letter extension and opening it with whatever program uses that extension. By the way, sometimes within the gibberish of the text file you may see the possible program that made the file. For instance, you may see the letters FH8. That would stand for a Freehand 8 illustration program file. In that case you would change the .dat to .FH8. Then you would need the program Freehand to open it. Various extensions would be - .doc (Word) - .eps (art file which can be imported into any program that you can import or place art) - .tif (art file - see eps) - .qxd (Quark) - .p65 (PageMaker) and there are many more. Take care, Linda