Unwanted spaces in .rtf file generated with ColdFusion - coldfusion

Question

I'm pulling my hair out over this one! I'm using ColdFusion to generate .rtf files like the one below for printing Avery mailing labels. For some reason, a space appears before each name in the first column, but only after the first row. This has me stumped because I've looked at the source being generated and don't see an extra character before the name, even though when I open the .rtf in a text editor I can delete the character manually to fix this. Can anyone tell me why that extra space is there? You can download the actual .rtf file at this URL:
http://www.bitmojo.com/Avery-Label-Test.rtf
Well I guess I can't post images...feel free to ask for a link if you need clarification.
Adding this here since it was too long for a comment:
I'm using the CF_AVERYRTF.CFM custom tag from over ten years ago...hasn't been updated since to my knowledge. I'll edit my question to add the code that actually generates and saves out the RTF. It uses cfsavecontent, cfscript and writeoutput to create the variable that gets saved to disk as the .rtf file, and when I cfdump that variable before the .rtf gets written to disk I don't see any extra characters before the names, but when I open the .rtf file source in my code editor I see a space before each name, and when I open the .rtf in the text editor on my mac I only see spaces before the names in the first column after the first row...that's what's driving me crazy, seeing different things depending on where and how I'm looking at the data...that's why I posted the example file, so someone could take a look and at least verify what I'm seeing. Here's an image of the symptom as it appears on my Mac (spaces circled)
screen shot http://www.bitmojo.com/Avery-Label-Screen-Shot.png
Also here's the code that generates the data:
<cfsavecontent variable="ThisTag.GeneratedRTF">
<cfscript>
// open RTF document with header information
writeOutput("{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\uc1 \deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss Arial;}{\f1\fswiss Helvetica;}{\f2\fswiss Impact;}{\f3\froman Times New Roman;}}");
writeOutput("{\colortbl;\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\blue255;\red0\green255\blue255;\red0\green255\blue0;\red255\green0\blue255;\red255\green0\blue0;\red255\green255\blue0;\red255\green255\blue255;\red0\green0\blue128;\red0\green128\blue128;\red0\green128\blue0;\red128\green0\blue128;\red128\green0\blue0;\red128\green128\blue0;\red128\green128\blue128;\red192\green192\blue192;\red255\green255\blue255;}");
writeOutput("{\info{\title VFIVE Label Generator (#request.rtfLabels.labeltitle# Output)}{\author cf_averyRTF $Revision: 1.17 $}{\operator cf_averyRTF resides at http://rtf.vfive.com}{\*\company VFIVE (http://www.vfive.com)}{\creatim\yr#Year(now())#\mo#Month(now())#\dy#Day(now())#\hr#Hour(now())#\min#Minute(now())#}{\version1}{\edmins0}{\nofpages1}{\nofwords0}{\nofchars0}{\nofcharsws0}{\vern1000}}\paperw#request.rtfLabels.paperw#\paperh#request.rtfLabels.paperh#\margl#request.rtfLabels.margl#\margr#request.rtfLabels.margr#\margt#request.rtfLabels.margt#\margb#request.rtfLabels.margb#");
if (Attributes.landscape)
{
writeOutput("\landscape");
}
writeOutput("\gutter#request.rtfLabels.gutter# \widowctrl\ftnbj\aenddoc\noxlattoyen\expshrtn\noultrlspc\dntblnsbdb\nospaceforul\horzdoc \jexpand\viewkind1\viewscale#request.rtfLabels.viewscale#\nolnhtadjtbl \fet0\sectd \linex#request.rtfLabels.linex#\sectdefaultcl");
// loop over each row in the dataset
for (ii = 1; ii LTE arrayLen(thisTag.assocAttribs); ii = ii + 1)
{
// if this is the first cell of a row, create the row (like <tr>)
if (NOT ((ii + request.rtfLabels.columns - 1) MOD request.rtfLabels.columns))
{
// output the <tr>-like row start, cellBoundary
writeOutput("\trowd \trrh#request.rtfLabels.trrhcell#\trkeep" & cellBoundary);
// output row setup (align, indent, etc)
writeOutput(" \pard\plain \q#request.rtfLabels.textalign# \li#request.rtfLabels.li#\ri#request.rtfLabels.ri#\widctlpar\intbl\faauto \f#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontface#\fs20\lang1033\langfe1033");
}
// output each individual cell header (like <td>)
writeOutput("{\#request.rtfLabels.bold#\fs#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontsize#\f#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontface# ");
// output barcode on top if appropriate
if (len(trim(thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].zipCode)) AND thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].barPos EQ "top")
{
writeOutput("{\field\flddirty{\*\fldinst { BARCODE }{\lang1024\langfe1024\noproof #ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].zipcode#}{\\u }}{\fldrslt }}\par");
}
// loop over the lines of content in this cell
for (jj = 1; jj LTE arrayLen(ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].arrCell); jj = jj + 1)
{
// content to be displayed?
if (len(trim(thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].arrCell[jj].content)) OR NOT thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].stripBlankLines)
{
// are we bolding this line of content?
if (thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].arrCell[jj].bold)
{
writeOutput("\b");
}
else
{
writeOutput("\b0");
}
writeOutput("\fs#ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].arrCell[jj].fs#\f#ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].arrCell[jj].f##ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].arrCell[jj].content#");
if (jj LT arrayLen(ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].arrCell))
{
writeOutput("\par");
}
}
}
// close out cell (like a </td>)
writeOutput("}{\fs#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontsize#\f#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontface# ");
// output barcode on bottom if appropriate
if (len(trim(thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].zipCode)) AND thisTag.assocAttribs[ii].barPos EQ "bottom")
{
writeOutput(" {\field\flddirty{\*\fldinst { BARCODE }{\lang1024\langfe1024\noproof #ThisTag.AssocAttribs[ii].zipcode#}{\\u }}{\fldrslt }}");
}
// prepare to close this cell </td>
writeOutput("\cell } ");
// close this cell out like a </td>
if (ii MOD request.rtfLabels.columns)
{
writeOutput(" \pard \q#request.rtfLabels.textalign# \li#request.rtfLabels.li#\ri#request.rtfLabels.ri#\widctlpar\intbl\faauto {\cell }");
}
else
{
writeOutput("\pard\plain \q#request.rtfLabels.textalign# \li#request.rtfLabels.li#\ri#request.rtfLabels.ri#\widctlpar\intbl\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\adjustright \fs#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontsize#\f#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontface#\lang1033\langfe1033");
}
// if this is the last cell of a row, end it (like a </tr>) --->
if (NOT (ii MOD request.rtfLabels.columns))
{
// start close: output code + cellCloser + " \row }"
writeOutput("\pard\plain \q#request.rtfLabels.textalign# \li#request.rtfLabels.li#\ri#request.rtfLabels.ri#\widctlpar\intbl\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\adjustright \fs#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontsize#\f#request.rtfLabels.defaultfontface#\lang1033\langfe1033 {\trowd \trrh#request.rtfLabels.trrhcell#\trkeep " & cellCloser & " \row }#chr(13)##chr(10)#");
// add an extra spacer row?
if (request.rtfLabels.useSpacer)
{
// output complete spacerRow as defined above
writeOutput(spacerRow);
}
}
// end of outer for loop
}
// close out document
writeOutput("\pard \q#request.rtfLabels.textalign# \li#request.rtfLabels.li#\ri#request.rtfLabels.ri#\widctlpar\aspalpha\aspnum\faauto\adjustright { \par }{ \par }}");
</cfscript>
</cfsavecontent>

Answer 1

We can't say much about this without seeing code. Added to what #Miguel-F said, if you're using any of your own functions in this process, have they got output="false" specified?
CF has a nasty habit of haemorrhaging whitespace (like from your source code's indentation) unless you specifically control it. This doesn't cause a problem (other than bloat) for rendered HTML as the HTML spec says it ought to be ignored, so the browser does so. This is not the case for other file formats.
It will almost certainly be your code's white space bleeding through.
One fairly easy way of dealing with this is to use CFScript rather than tags, wherever possible (which is reasonable advice as a matter of course anyhow, do keep your code clear and concise).
UPDATE
If you are using a custom tag, make sure you have <cfsilent> tags around the call to it, and around everything within it which emits anything. Custom tags are terrible for emitting spurious whitespace.

Answer 2

This resolved itself now that I've upgraded to ColdFusion 2016, so I'm going to write it off as a bug in ColdFusion that was solved by Adobe.