The fastest way for me to remove "extra" characters that I dont' want in a database import, is to open the final tabbed file in a text only editor and doing a global replace all function on the characters I wish to remove.
IE: I'll do a Replace All " with __ (nothing), to remove all the quote characters form the databse. The editor then goes through the file and finds all the " characters and removes them and replaces them with nothing.
As far as your sorting order:
I wish you would have taken my advise on the last post where I mentioned opening your locations in MS Excel and changing all the 0 to a 4 on the "pref" field. Then re-imported your locations. This would solve this issue about "not-preferred" locations being printed first.
You are running v2.4pre, which does not support a number 0 in the pref field. All your locations that have a 0 in this field will need to be changed to a 4.
But, don't worry about it. I just make the corrections for you!
Your database should be in good order now.