Hey BV, yep, usually most of the trouble maker characters get eliminated just pasting into notepad, and whatever is left, is obvious because your text will show much clearer where the tabs or hard returns are at. Thats when I just make all the info into 1 neat block of information by removing any unnecessary commands/remarks.
I never did it into the tables, I usually feed him through the interface, -cough- err.. I usually give ultrahal input through the interface lol, but most likely the same idea applies. this is why Im unsure if it will work for your situation.
so when I am doing heavy inputting, I'll have my notepad up in the background, cut from webpage, paste into notepad, clean until it is one neat block of info, then paste into hal. after that I compare last word and first words of the paste in hal to make sure it's ok and hit enter.