diff --git a/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp b/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
index a8eeb43f..3b2cc3f8 100644
--- a/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
+++ b/src/classes/PMsr2Data.cpp
@@ -51,6 +51,13 @@ using namespace boost::algorithm;
 
 #include "PMsr2Data.h"
 
+// determine the length of the linebreak string for different systems ('\r' (old) Macintosh, '\n' Unix, "\r\n" DOS)
+#if defined(__MSDOS__) || defined(_MSC_VER)
+#define INCR 2
+#else
+#define INCR 1
+#endif /* __MSDOS__ || _MSC_VER */
+
 //-------------------------------------------------------------
 /**
  * <p> Write formatted output to column-formatted ASCII output file
@@ -1954,9 +1961,10 @@ int PMsr2Data::WriteOutput(const string &outfile, bool db, unsigned int withHead
       int size(outFile.tellg());
       string s;
 
-      for (int i(1); i<=size; ++i) { // find the last non-empty line -- this procedure at the moment probably breaks native Windows support
+      for (int i(INCR); i<=size; i+=INCR) { // find the last non-empty line
         outFile.seekg(-i, ios::end);
         getline(outFile, s);
+        trim(s); // remove whitespace
         if (s.empty()) {
           if (i == size) {
             outFile.seekp(0);