Re: Mass renaming
"Kieron Capehorn" <kcapehornR.E,M-O'V`E@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news
Zdji.129112$hj5.91785@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> Is there a method of renaming all the files in a folder systematically? I
> have a folder full of files that begin with numbers. I want to add a 0 to
> the beginning of each filename (i.e. 1.xls will become 01.xls). I have
> tried putting the command 'rename *.* 0*.*' into command, but that replaced
> the first letter of each filename with a 0, rather than adding a 0.
>
> This there an easy way to do this?
>
> Thanks.
>
Kieron:
Good timing: my neice asked me last week.
I sent this to her / other family on Saturday:
if you find it useful, feel free to send it along to others.
I use it a lot after trips.
" When returning from a party, trip , rather than importing your camera files to your PC and having them being named DSC0007 , DSC0008 etc, how about calling them WDW2006, WDW2006-1 , ... something that TELLS you what they are so you can tell at a glance next time AND without doing all of the typing. To keep them organized and avoid typing cramp, Windows has an easy way for the renaming these files as long as they are all the same type of file ( JPG or AVI etc )
[NOTE *** If you have a lot of files that are NOT in order this isn't that helpful to you. You want to be sure that they are now listed in order when you open the folder since this will rename everything between the first and last file you pick. And be sure they are the same type ( all end in " .jpg " or all end in " . avi " etc). If mingled types, click on the " File Type" column to sort by type first and then pick the first/last of each type ]
Here we go - to rename multiple files :
First you'd have to browse to know how you'd like to group / rename them ( that DSC0022.jpg thru DSC0197.jpg are really your WDW2006 trip for instance ), then:
1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder/files you wish to rename
2. Select the last file you wish to be renamed - left click on it
(DSC0197.jpg in my example )
3. Hold down the shift key and left click on the first file you wish to be renamed
(DSC0022.jpg)
Those files will now be highlighted
4. Press F2
The first file's name will be highlighted in blue and the others greyed out.
Note what comes after the period in the name - is it .jpg or .bmp or ..avi etc ?
5. Type in the new name you wish to use for the files WDW2006.jpg
YES retype the " .jpg " ( or whatever it was) or you'll change the type of file
6. Press Enter.
All the files will now be renamed and apart from the first one will have a number in parenthesis following it. like WDW2006 (122).jpg
Next time you'll easily see that all of those files are related to WDW trip, rather than some useless name that you have to open to check. "
Bobb