output underlines; unidentifiable square character

[McCue]

Two questions:
One: I have a fixed width text file downloaded from a mainframe. The first column contains a printer code that translates:
Blank Next line
+ Return to first column of current line (overstrike)
- Triple line space
0 Double line space
1 Form feed

My final out put is going to be a PDF that I am creating from a text file output. I switched out the characters above for the appropriated new line (\n) and form feed (\f) characters. The problem that I am having is the line with the plus (+), which tells the printer not to line feed, and print on the same line again. It is for underlines. For example the source file could look like this and the output should have MARCH underlined.

MONTH OF YEAR-TO-DATE PLANNED REMAINING
MARCH EXPENDITURES EXPENDITURES BALANCE
+ ______

Does anyone know how I can output an underline. It could be to a text file, a post script file or what ever I can use to ultimately created a pdf.

Question two: After I have tried switching out every conceivable escape character, I still get an unidentifiable little square characters when I open the output text file in Word. This would not be a problem, except nothing on the line after the little square characters will print.
$my_line =~ s/\s*$//g;
$my_line =~ s/\n//g;
$my_line =~ s/\r//g;
$my_line =~ s/\t//g;
$my_line =~ s/\v//g;
$my_line =~ s/\b//g;
Did I miss some invisible character? Any suggestions?

Gia McCue

 

[sleipnir214]

On question two:

Do you have available a text editor capable of hexadecimal display?