To save your audit report, on the menu select File + Save then enter the file name of your choice, WinAudit usually provides the computer's name for you. Next, from the drop down list choose the type of document. Finally, click the Save button.

Compiled Html

This format compresses data into a single file, it is often used to display documentation and on-line help. Compiled html is a proprietary format and as such Html Help Workshop (a Microsoft® utility) must be installed. You can download this from their website www.microsoft.com. When saving the audit in this format, WinAudit will attempt to locate Html Help Workshop on the computer. If this could not be found, you will be prompted for its location, in the event that it has been installed at a non-standard location.

Compiled html does not fully support Unicode. WinAudit operates on a best effort basis to choose fonts, html character sets and encodings to render topics, contents and links according the computer's regional settings. Multi-byte characters (typically Asian/Oriental) in the table of contents will not display correctly.

Links in the content only function within WinAudit, for example, clicking on the link to increase text size will yield a message similar to 'Page cannot be displayed'. Note, no index of keywords is created.

Not available when WinAudit is running in the Pre-Installation Environment.

Comma Delimited

This format is used by spreadsheets and custom data analysis programmes. The data is set out in rows and columns to mimic the tables in the report. In order to make this file as machine readable as possible, the output is more structured than in previous versions of WinAudit. In particular:

A single column header is included.

Only data in the report's tables is included.

No empty rows between report categories

A comma is used as a field separator regardless of regional locale.

The fields are as follows:

Data exported to a database may need to be truncated to fit into the table's columns. If you need unmodified data, use this CSV format and perform your own custom database insertion. Note, while the data ordering is the same for both database and spreadsheet exporting, in the former case, there are additional fields such as RecordID and UserDB. These are generated by the database at record insertion time and are therefore not included in the spreadsheet export.

Portable Document

WinAudit can save the report in Portable Document Format (PDF). If you choose this format, you will be presented with a box that allows you to set options for the document. If you wish, you can password protect your document. The encryption is not strong (40-bit) but this suffices for most purposes. You can also set the document's permissions. By default, other people can copy and print but not edit the document.

The programme supports a number of character sets which are used to create the PDF document. Select the one most appropriate for your language. The following are available:

Choosing a character set that is different from that being used by the operating system may result in unpredictable output. The programme may override the font you have chosen to display the report so that the document will be understandable to PDF readers. All other document information such as its title, author and bookmarks are in ANSI only. This also applies to any password entered and the file path used to save the document.

Unicode Note:
The Unicode version of WinAudit will attempt to preserve Left-To-Right reading text but legibility of output cannot be guaranteed because the programme may need to simulate text metrics when font information is not available. Multi-byte bookmarks are not yet implemented. The following additional character sets are available:

Text

WinAudit supports three types of text output namely, formatted, tabbed and Unicode. To view the report in a text editor supporting only Western European characters choose formatted. Be sure to set your editor to a fixed-width font such as courier so that the table columns are correctly aligned. The tabbed format contains column headings. The Unicode format is for reports that may have "International" characters. The file is UTF-16 little endian and is compatible with newer versions Notepad.

Web Page

You can save your report in web page (HTML) format with or without images. For ease of viewing, the report makes use of frames. The left one contains the navigation links and the right one contains the actual report content. Consequently, three (3) html files are created; {name}_left.html, {name}_right.html and {name}.html. It is this last file that is to be opened in the web browser. In this manner, its visual appearance in a browser resembles that as seen when in the programme. WinAudit will replace any non-ASCII character with an underscore. This conforms to the html specification which does not permit these characters in the source attribute of a frame tag.

When saving an HTML page, those images that show transient information for a specific computer are saved with that computer's name as a prefix on the filename. An example is the memory usage image. In this manner, if the destination directory already contains reports for other computers, their images are not overwritten.

XML

The audit report can be saved in Extended Markup Language (XML) format. Associated with the XML file is the transformation style sheet wa_xml2html.xsl which enables the data content to be viewed as a web page in XML capable browsers. Examples are Internet Explorer® 5.5, Netscape® 8 and Firefox™ 1.5. XML usage is now widespead, so check your browser's documentation to determine if it is capable of rendering XML data.