Hi all,
I have navigated to a folder in DOS in order to copy and paste file names into Excel in order to rename appropriatley before archiving.
When I paste into Excel I can only retrieve the last 296 files. Is there a limit on how much data I can copy using this method?
I'm using instructions I found on the internet (See below) but if anyone can suggest a better way of doing this I would be extremly grateful.
I have navigated to a folder in DOS in order to copy and paste file names into Excel in order to rename appropriatley before archiving.
When I paste into Excel I can only retrieve the last 296 files. Is there a limit on how much data I can copy using this method?
I'm using instructions I found on the internet (See below) but if anyone can suggest a better way of doing this I would be extremly grateful.
Step 1: Type cmd and switch (using cd command) to the directory that contains the files you want to rename in bulk.
Step 2: Type dir /b to see a skeleton list of all files in the current directory. Copy that file list to the clipboard by selecting Mark from the contextual menu.
Step 3: The fun starts now. Fire your copy of Microsoft Excel or Google Docs Spreadsheets and paste those file names into the first spreadsheet column.
Step 4: In the blank adjacent column, add a corresponding Excel function for instance, use SUBSTITUTE to change specific text in the filenames, use CONCATENATE() with DATE() if you want to add date to the filename, etc.
*For more complex criteria, you may want to put the file extensions in a separate column by splitting the file name using period (.) as the delimiter.
Step 5: Your source filenames are now in column A while the Destination files are in column B we will now convert this into a DOS rename command.
In Column C, type the following Excel formula and your command is ready to be executed.
=CONCATENATE(ren ,A1, , B1)
Copy paste the same formula across all cells in column C for which you have corresponding values in Column A or B.
We are almost done. Copy all the values from column C to the clipboard and paste them inside the DOS window or better still, put them inside a new text file and give it a name like rename.bat.
Execute and all files that match the criteria are renamed instantly