Charles,
Unfortunately you experience FileMaker trying to be overly clever by dictating the .tab filename extension.
But you may use every extension and file format required by using an XSL stylesheet.

-Winfried


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On 2014-07-07, at 15:16, Charles Hartley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> That's pretty much what I do. On my Mac I have .tab set to open with BBEdit, and go from there. Thanks for the input.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Richard S. Russell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> On 2014 Jul 6, at 21:53, Charles Hartley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> When I try that (changing .tab to .txt in the name of the file to be exported) I get the popup message "You cannot save this document with extension '.txt" at the end of the name. The required extension is '.tab'."
> 
> 
> Hmmm. OK, export it with the “.tab” extension and change it to “.txt” with your file manager (Windows, is it?). Then try opening it in your preferred word processor.
>