James,

However, opening it in Windows Notepad, or Wordpad turns
all the lines into upper characters, and that makes it pretty hard
to read, if not impossible to use.

Thats not Notepads or Wordpads doing, thats just the default character used
by Windows. I think you can change it to use the DOS style characterset,
but that would be system-wide (in other words: don't do it).

What you can do however is to, in Wordpad, select one such character, press
ctrl-H (replace a string), and enter, in the textbox below it, the
replacement char you want instead.

For instance, change that "Ã" to "+", the "Ä" to "-". the "³" to "|", and
the "À" to "\". I think thats about all.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser