Why can't the MEME Suite read my sequence data?

[CharlesEGrant]

One common cause of this problem is having edited the data file with a word processor such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Wordpad, or Open Office. The files submitted to the MEME tools must be plain text, but word processing programs generally add extensive formatting information to the text. The formatting information prevents MEME from recognizing the sequence data. We recommend using a text editing program rather then a word processor to edit data files. Common text editors are Microsoft Notepad, Apple TextEdit, Emacs, Vi, BBEdit, Kate, and Jot. 

If you have been editing your files with a word processor, you can usually recover a plain text version by choosing "Save As ..." from the "File" menu. The "Save As ..." dialog box will almost always offer an option to save as plain text. 

Another common problem is that FASTA file are sometimes provided in compressed format. This is usually indicated by a suffix of ".gz" or ".zip" in the file name. You must uncompress your FASTA file before submitting it to the MEME Suite tools. Common tools for un-compressing are 'gzip' and 'unzip'.