Why do we recommend bash ?

A propos

Tabulify recommends to use a bash based terminal because bash supports to pass simply a URL as parameter whereas Windows CMD or Powershell do not.

The Windows CMD or Powershell shell see the & ampersand character of an URL as a special terminal character known as a control operator and split the URL.

Example

For instance, if you want to copy:

the content of the following URL https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=SQL
in a CMD/DOS/Powershell terminal
with the data copy command

tabul data copy "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=SQL" sql.xml

Because of the ampersand, you will get the following error.

=query was unexpected at this time.

On Windows shell, the ampersand must be then escaped
While the same command line in a Bash would just run (because Bash creates token (word) of each argument and does not process them any further)

How to get Bash ?

If you does not have bash, we have created a step-by-step tutorial on how to install it.