perhaps a n00bish question, which file contains all the names and so on?

i mean the names and decriptions the 'name' column in spells.2da referrs to.

well thanks. that thing contains all language data. is there a way to include names/decriptions in a mod without modifying that thing?

But the GFF editor is not so good at handling line breaks, because it puts in CR+LF character instead of just LF which is what the game wants. So in that case you'll have to hex edit the file afterwards, change 0D0A to 200A.

Actually, as long as you don't hit the enter/return key and let the words wrap on their own it will display fine.