# how do I open/use a .asp file?



## PowermacG4_450 (Dec 1, 2002)

downloaded one... now what? 

what program can I use to "use" this thing? textedit didnt work. 

thanks.


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## Captain Code (Dec 1, 2002)

ASP is Active Server Pages, similar to PHP.

Did you just download it by using save page as in a web browser, or did you really download the whole page, and not just the html it shows you?

You need either MS IIS web server, or an apache module, which I forget the name of.

You should be able to open it in any text editor because it's just a text file.


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Dec 1, 2002)

Doesn't text edit have a limit to the size of the file it can open? Oh well that's just what I thought, maybe it's too large for textedit.


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## PowermacG4_450 (Dec 2, 2002)

it actually a "file" for upgrading a bulletin board... when opened in text edit, just had a bunch of weird characters.


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## TommyWillB (Dec 2, 2002)

You probably need to just save it to a file and ignore the fact tha the ASP developer did not test this on a Mac... The fact is that the download is taking the name of the ASP page rather than the file it is trying to download to you.

Just rename the file to whatever is is supposed to be... If it is an executable that is supposed to run on WinDoze, then you SOL...


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## rain (Nov 11, 2009)

I just opened an ASP file using Adobe Reader.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Nov 11, 2009)

Let's hope they haven't been waiting 7 years for your answer... 

An ASP file is a text file.  Any program that can read text files can open and display an ASP file.

They're best viewed remotely with a browser, though, and by that I mean that an ASP file, 99.9% of the time, is a web page file (like any old html, php or jsp page/file), and probably does you no good on your local machine (unless you're a web developer working on the website).

Kind of like downloading Apple's home page in html format -- what good is it to you?  It's best left on the server, viewed with a browser, if you catch my drift.


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## rain (Nov 11, 2009)

I tried opening it in textEdit but as the first poster said, got "weird characters".  I wonder why we both had those problems.

Yeah, I hope they weren't waiting for my answer!


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## CharlieJ (Nov 16, 2009)

What do you mean by 'weird characters' - This may be code?

For example

<html>
<head>
<title>Code</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="this_is_nice">Hello, This is a really nice div</div>
<p>La, lalalalalalalalala, LAA </p>
</body>
</html>

Very simple example - but that's what it could look like - If so, this is HTML/ASP code - If you don't understand this it's probably not much good to you. Why are you editing it if you don't understand ASP, HTML e.t.c

Try www.w3schools.com to get a better understanding of ASP, HTML e.t.c.

But I am warning you - it's not simple.


Charlie


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## rain (Nov 16, 2009)

It looked like this when i tried to open the ASP file in textedit:

%PDF-1.4
%
29 0 obj
<</Linearized 1/L 210822/O 31/E 132837/N 7/T 210195/H [ 1416 390]>>
endobj

xref
29 56
0000000016 00000 n
0000001806 00000 n
0000001887 00000 n
0000002067 00000 n
0000002373 00000 n
0000002503 00000 n
0000002638 00000 n

I am not editing.  I received an ASP file and just wanted to open it.  I stumbled on the solution to use Adobe Reader, which worked.


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