How to open a code or text file online
Three steps, a few seconds, no software.
Open your .WS file
Drop it on the box, choose it from your device, or paste the text straight in.
View it instantly
Your .WS file opens neatly formatted with line numbers.
Search, copy or download
Search the text, jump to any line, then copy what you need or download a clean copy.
What is a .WS file?
Plain text that programs, servers and people write every day.
A WS file is a WordStar document, a text file created by WordStar, the dominant word processor of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Open it with LibreOffice Writer (free), which has a built-in WordStar import filter. If the text looks garbled with odd accented characters, that is a known WordStar encoding quirk; LibreOffice decodes it correctly.
Programs that open .WS files
| Full name | WordStar Document |
|---|---|
| Developer | MicroPro International (later SoftKey / WordStar International) |
| First released | 1978 (WordStar 1.0 for CP/M); .ws used by WordStar 5.0-7.0 for DOS/Windows |
| Category | Text & Code |
| MIME type | application/x-wordstar |
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Frequently asked questions
Is my .WS file uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read and highlighted for you.
Why do some characters look wrong (é, ł)?
That usually means the file was saved in one encoding and opened in another. We detect UTF-8, UTF-16 and the Windows-1250/1252 code pages automatically and show which one was used.
Can it handle huge log files?
Yes, up to 50 MB. Only the lines on screen are drawn, so scrolling stays smooth. Syntax colours are switched off for files over 1.5 MB to keep things fast.
How do the log level filters work?
We find levels like ERROR, WARN, INFO and DEBUG on each line. Lines without a level, such as stack traces, stay with the entry above them, so filtering to errors keeps the full trace.
Can I edit the file?
This is a viewer. To change code, download it or copy it into your editor. Converting encodings and line endings is planned.
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