1. Typing your resume directly into the space provided.
2. Doing a "copy and paste" of a previously saved resume file.

**Avoid special characters (e.g., "smart quotes," mathematical symbols, etc.) and tabs (use your spacebar instead). Fonts will become whatever a computer uses as its default face and size, so boldface, italics, and various sizes will not appear in the ASCII version.

Make sure your cursor is active (blinking) in the box before you "paste". After pasting your resume, confirm the content by using the scroll bars.  You may want to re-read your resume to make sure everything is correct.

How do I copy and paste my resume?

1. Open your resume and highlight the text you want to copy to the new location.
2. With the text highlighted, select "Edit" then "Copy" (commands found on the menu bar of most word processors).  This command makes a copy of the text you have highlighted and places it on the clipboard.
3. Open the window with the Internet browser you are using and place the cursor in the box where you will insert the copied text. Select "Edit" then "Paste".   This will paste the the text you highlighted from your resume into the Resume box.
4. If you have difficulty copying and pasting your resume, try using the keyboard commands; "Ctrl + C" (for copy), and "Ctrl + V" (for paste). 

ASCII text provides an information exchange standard that allows millions of Internet users with different networks, word processing applications, and computer platforms to read and display the same document. Technically, ASCII utilizes a universal coding scheme of numeric values that enables computers and computer programs to exchange accurate information regardless of the platform.  Once you write or paste your text resume into any Resume Form on a Web site or the message field of an email document, the any receiver will easily view your resume regardless of the type of computer platform you and the receiver use to transfer the information. 

From an Existing Resume
Open your resume file in your word processing program. Under "File", there should be an option for "Save As..".    On the corresponding screen you should have the option to "Save files as type..."  From the list presented, choose "Text"  or "Rich Text Format".  The file extension will be .txt or rtf.   You will now have two formats of your resume. 

From Scratch
Prepare it on your word processor following these instructions:

1. Left justify all of the text in your resume, including the header.
2. Do not use bullets, bolding, italics, underlining, or different size fonts.
3. Do not use blocks of text side-by-side like a newspaper or magazine article.
4. Do not use tabs, only use your space bar to indent (sparingly).
5. Use hard carriage returns to insert line breaks.
6. Use Capital letters for your section headings followed by a colon (e.g. OBJECTIVE:)
7. End all sentences, phrases and bullets with periods.
8. Format, proof read and spell check your resume before submission.  If your resume has extra odd characters left over from converting it from your word processor format to ASCII text, delete them.

What's program swapping?
Most computers are able to have multiple programs open at the same time.  This allows you to do work in a word processing program, copy the text and then swap into your email or Internet browser and paste the material in there.

How do I swap between programs?
Windows 3.1  Hold down the Alt and Tab keys at the same time to jump between the Program Manager and other programs.

Windows 95  The taskbar (where the Start button is) will indicate what programs you have open.  Simply open the programs you want, and then use the taskbar to switch back and forth. 

Macintosh    Use the Finder (upper right) to see see what programs are open.  Use the same methods here as well.

These methods may not work if your computer does not have enough RAM (temporary memory). If this is the case, you will have to open and close programs.

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What is ASCII text?
ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange and is pronounced.  ASCII does not include any formatting commands within the document. This is the most common format used by email.  ASCII documents are the same as text format.

What does a resume in ASCII look like?
ASCII does not allow underlining, bullets, or fancy formatting in general and is limited to 70 spaces across a page.
Instead use the following suggestions: ASCII does not allow underlining, bullets, or fancy formatting in general and is limited to 70 spaces across a page.
Instead use the following suggestions:

• For bullets:  ~, +, or *
• Capitalize headings
• Use hyphens

Where do I post my ASCII resume?
Once you've followed the above steps, you can start by posting your ASCII resume on our Online Resume Page. All you have to do is go to the section labeled Resume. Remember, once you've constructed your ASCII resume, you can save this file and copy and paste it anywhere on the Web!

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