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Thread ID: 29107 2003-01-10 01:15:00 Mass shortening of file names - how? robo (205) Press F1
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112602 2003-01-10 01:15:00 I use multiple rename, it's a great utility.

However, I have mp3'd all my Beatles CDs and want to shorten the track names so I can dump them all onto one disc (I can get all their albums ignoring compilations onto one disk, which isn't bad).

But, the software named all the tracks with group, album, title like this:

The Beatles_Magical Mystery Tour_01_Magical Mystery Tour.mp3

Which gets kind of long, too long for CD nomenclature when it is in a sub-directory as well.

Any brilliant ideas?
robo.
robo (205)
112603 2003-01-10 01:49:00 Robo,

What about something like the following .hta file available from batchRenamer (burandesigns.tripod.com) I tested this first and it seems to work ok. Pays to read (or copy) the documentation from the site.

Cheers, babe.
Babe Ruth (416)
112604 2003-01-10 01:52:00 I think Win XP can do it. If you select all the files and type in what you want it named as. Then they'll be beetle(1), beetle(2) etc. -=JM=- (16)
112605 2003-01-10 04:13:00 In DOS, with a lot of files called LongNam1.ext, LongNam2.ext,... you could do ren Long*.ext *.extand get the files Nam1.ext, Nam2.ext, ...

If your Windows version has a Command line (although Dos is not part of XP :D), it might still work. ;-) You would have to quote the "long_names with spaces_in_them" .
Graham L (2)
112606 2003-01-10 05:12:00 In the end, I used some careful coding with multiple rename. Trimmed the "The " from the beginnings and then mass shortened some of the album titles by album (no other way I could see).
But thanks, guys.
robo.
robo (205)
112607 2003-01-10 06:37:00 Robo,

You could do it using Excel (much the same way you suggested to me a few weeks back). Load a .CSV of all your files, CTRL+H to Find/Replace (remove the extra garbage at the start by putting that in the "Find" box, and leave the replace box blank - then you can rename them all to just the song name... you can also strip spaces out this way if you want to. Then use your fancy REN formula you gave me the other day to rename all your files from a Batch file.

Mike.
Mike (15)
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