18.11. Using BBEdit: Zapping Gremlins

Another common occurrence? Getting a text file that's full of what BBEdit calls gremlins. In other words, any of the host of non-ASCII characters that might confuse a text editor (or Web browser) completely: em dashes, ellipses, funny control characters from word processing applications, and more.

Removing these types of crazy characters is extremely tedious and error-prone, especially if you're dealing with a large file with a lot of content in it — your eyes just won't see some of them, no matter how hard you try.