Filenames
[July 2005] If you make files such as Word documents or PDFs available for visitors to download or you send attachments be careful how you name the files.
Tripwires.
When you write a Microsoft Word document, or any other document for that matter, there comes a crucial moment when you Save the file. At that time you have the chance to give your file a filename. Microsoft Word will often suggest the first few words of your document as the filename and you may decide to use that. When I did that with this Tip the suggested filename was (I'm not kidding here!):
If you make files such as Word documents or PDFs available for visitors to download be careful how you name them.doc
That's a total of 112 characters!
That's not a problem if all you're intending to do with that file is save it on your computer and perhaps print it off on your own printer, but if you email it to someone else, put it on a CD or want to add it to your website for people to download then you are creating a lot of potential problems.
The Internet is varied.
The thing about the Internet is that it's been going for about 40 years. It includes hundreds of thousands of different computers and computer systems. Your email attachment or your web page will pass through many different systems on its way from where it is to where it's going.
Many of those computer systems are quite modern and can deal with long filenames without problems, but some of them are old or just plain ornery and can't handle long filenames. You may find that if you use a long filename on your document weird things happen.
There are also problems connected with some characters that we mght commonly use in filenames. For example, a colleague recently sent me a file with the name: When the role doesn't suit the volunteer.doc.
This file caused me all kinds of problems. I couldn't get the file onto my computer; I couldn't change the name and I couldn't delete it. Why? Not because the name was long, but because it had an apostrophe in it!
Even spaces are difficult: a file name like this: guidelines for users.doc becomes this when it's on the web: guidelines%20for%20users.doc. See those %20 things? That's what the spaces turned into.
Rename it.
If you have a file you want to send as an attachment or have connected to a web page for visitors to download there are some guidelines which will make it a better experience for everyone.
- Save another copy of your document by choosing Save As. This can help reduce the file size.
- Give the file a new name, preferably with 8 characters or fewer (not counting the final dot and three letter extension). If you can't keep it within 8 then at least try to keep it short.
- Avoid all spaces and punctuation. Absolutely don't use the / (forward slash) and stay well away from using ' and " (apostrophe and speech mark), : or ; (colon or semi-colon), * (asterisk).
- Accessibility standards recommend lower-case letters only. For example "myfilename". However, mixed case can aid readability e.g. "MyFileName".
- The - (hyphen) is very useful e.g. "my-file-name" for aiding readability (and findability by search engines - not many people know that tip). Do not use the _ (underscore). It is often impossible to see, for example in my_file_name.
- Stick with basic letters and numbers. Don't try to use macrons or umlauts or other non-English characters, or any of the symbols you see on your keyboard.