Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Bulk renaming
There are strategies on both Windows and Mac computers to rename groups of files.
Windows XP/Vista lets you rename groups of files alphabetically or by date. Select all the
files, sort by name or date, press F2, then type the text you want them all to share.
Windows will rename and number them from top to bottom in the window, maintaining the
file extensions. To do more sophisticated renaming in Windows, you'll need a software pro-
gram for batch conversions. Several programs can do this for you, Microsoft Expression
Media among them. You can browse a file download site such as
www.shareware.com
for others.
Macs come with the Automator app. It uses actions like those in Photoshop to help you
automate tedious tasks. Although you can write your own, the actions you need for failsafe
file renaming come with the program. Open Automator, making sure that Applications is
highlighted so you'll see all the Finder-related actions. They're alphabetical, so drag these
actions to the workflow window in this order:
1. Get Specified Finder Items
Click the + symbol in the lower left of the window, navigate to the folder that holds the files
you want to rename, then click Open.
2. Copy Finder Items
Select a folder from the dropdown list to put a copy of these files into it temporarily. Doing
this saves a copy of the files in the original naming state in case something goes wrong.
Once you've renamed, you can't undo!
