DoN. Nichols wrote:

(...)

I have a question. Are the lines folded before you read it into
the newsreader?

No, many are single line monsters, but I think I know what you mean.
You should find the same thing I did; that the wrapped lines automagically
'unfold' when pasted into a text editor. No worries.

I think that an attachment might preserve the lines
better. (I've read it into Sun's StarOffice (their version of
OpenOffice) and it seems happy enough anyway.

I would be pleased to post it as an attachment, but I don't know how well
that would comply to the group charter. As you imply, I would like to keep
the list as safe and universally useful as possible.

I don't know whether I will every have the time to do the kind
of inventory needed, however. And I'm not accustomed to using
spreadsheets, so I may have a learning curve.

I add one item at a time.
My earlier posts look like I was angling for everyone to inventory every-
thing in their shop. Not The Case. I'm mostly looking for mass produced
parts that are normally thrown away which have some potential for reuse.

The precision shafts in old 5.25" floppy drives, for instance.

You are a smart cookie, DoN. That spreadsheet learning curve looks flat
to me.

In particular, it is not clear how I was supposed to add the
"second page" for metric materials. The first thought was to use my
preferred text edtior on the raw file, but that probably would miss some
things which would flag it as the "second page".

You intuit properly.
The second page is handled just as the first was.
Highlight the text and save it (CTRL-C).
Open your favorite text editor and paste (CTRL-V).
Save the new file as say, 'Metric.csv'
Pop open the spreadsheet you created (with the Imperial information)
and open the 'page two' tab (or sheet).
Tell the spreadsheet program to open your file named 'Metric.csv'.
It should ask you a couple questions about delimiters.
After you accept the defaults, it should display the conversions properly.
Just resize the column width and Bob's your uncle.

Let me caution you that at this very early stage, the
sheet is still in flux. Mismatches between versions will happen.
When in doubt, just tell me you want both sheets and I will post matching
versions.

At least it does not require a Windows program, at which point I
would have simply walked off. :-)

I'm trying to 'tune for maximum usefulness' so a Wintel specific answer
would be a non-starter.

The first 10,000 items will be the hardest.

--Winston