Hey mark!

 ml> why would you think that when he posted in the linux area?

Because the TID and the tearline both claim he is using a windows app to post
to this echo;

 > TID: PX/Win v3.0pr5 PX96-0466M2
 > --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5

Also the likelihood of getting a potential fix in this echoarea as opposed to a
 windows echoarea is much greater especially when it concerns terminal apps. 
Also, also windows users have used this echoarea in the past to get help.

 ml> i don't think you can shove those into a screen reader to remove
 ml> text before the reader verbalizes the it 

Why not?  I did exactly that to read the message I am replying to.  Although
there is more the line to find the actual message (text) is this;

sed -n "${1}p" messages.raw | gawk -F'\0' '{print $5}' | tr '\1\r' '@\n'

Note the 'tr' at the end replaces the C0 ascii control characters to their
printable forms.  The gawk call gets rid of the null character at the end of
the text.  I have another oneliner that fetches the DateTime, To, From, and
Subject fields using gawk's {print $1, $2, $3, $4} dealie which are also null
terminated as specified by -F'\0'.

Works like a charm and the oneliners could be replaced by a purely gawk script
which will do the job of sed and tr as well as the printing part to any screen
(terminal).  However, like I've already stated, where is the fun in that?

Life is good,
Maurice

... Don't cry for me I have vi.
--- GNU bash, version 5.0.0(1)-rc1 (x86_64-silvermont-linux-gnu)
 * Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint - Ladysmith BC, Canada (2:280/464.113)