Tutorial – Converting a Word Resume to ASCII Text

by Debra Wheatman on Feb 3, 2010 in Resume Writing, Resumes - Digital/Online

I am consistently asked by my writing clients the value of an ASCII (plain text) resume. This easy to create document is an important part of your search. Why? As you apply for online opportunities, you will need to upload a document that is free of formatting. Failure to do this will cause problems. You will find that if you try to upload a formatted document, it might appear with strange characters and spacing issues.

Let me tell you what an ASCII resume is. ASCII text contains no formatting within the document, and the text is not platform or application specific. Any person can obtain and read the resume via the Internet or e-mail no matter what system they are using. Since this format contains no formatting at all, the document will not look aesthetically pleasing. This is fine! The objective is to make sure that someone pulling the resume from a database or online system can read the information.

Creating your ASCII Resume:

After you open your Word résumé save it as a text Figure 2 – Save As only document. Your system will prompt you that all of the formatting will be gone. Accept this. You are not losing your Word document by doing this. Open your text file in Notepad. If you work on a Mac, use spotlight to find Notepad. If you work on a PC do the following: Start / Programs / Accessories / Notepad. You will see that all of the formatting is gone.

You will need to make sure that your plain text resume does not contain any strange characters that carried over from the formatted resume. In particular, you should look at the bullets, make sure they appear as asterisks (*) or dashes (-). Words in quotes or any symbols should be reviewed to make sure they look the same.

Any accents over words like the accents over the e’s in resume might not be right. You will need to make sure that this is correct. Any other special characters should be reviewed to ensure there are no errors.

Since this document is format-free, it might be difficult to identify where one section ends and one begins. For example, you might have difficulty identifying the Professional Experience section from the Education section.

To help create your sections, place a row of equal signs (=) between each section. Save your file with a .txt extension before closing to ensure all of your changes are captured.

When you next want to paste your resume into an online system, you will use the text file created in Notepad to do so. In Notepad you will be able to cut and paste. Your text should not appear distorted and the reader will be able to access and read it.

Here is what a sample of your text file should look like:

This process is very easy and should take a few minutes to do.