How to rename a large number of files?

christine_couper · Post by **christine_couper** » 23 Mar 2010 07:22

I have a folder on my computer, 'Family Historian Multimedia' and within that folder I have other folders, e.g census, bmd certificates etc etc. When I first started all this about 6 years ago, all my census images were named '1901 Census John Smith' etc etc, I now wish to rename them all, as so, '1901 Census John SMITH' where the surname is in capital letters.

Is there anyway of doing this as a batch without going through each one individually, I have over 3000 Census images, so it would be very time consuming, and each image is linked to my tree.

Also I want to do the same with all BMD Certificates, but I would assume the principal would be the same.

I would be extremely grateful for any help on this.

Regards Christine

ID:4424

christine_couper · Post by **christine_couper** » 23 Mar 2010 07:45

Also, I should add, that when I use Gedcom Census to record data, in the Other Info field I have typed the head of household, e.g John Smith, and again I would like to change that to John SMITH on each of my existing entries, so that the surname is in capital letters.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 23 Mar 2010 07:54

Changing the case won't matter on windows as it's not case sensitive.

I can't off the top of my head think of a tool to capitalise certain words in a File name, it's possible you could write a macro in AutoHotKey http://www.autohotkey.com/

Chris_Grice · Post by **Chris_Grice** » 23 Mar 2010 07:55

Hi Christine
I don't think there is any way to achieve this within Family Historian. However there are several (free) file renaming utilities available for a quick search on Google. Have a look here http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/syste ... ename.html.
Can't make any recommendations - maybe others have a favourite programme?

Good Luck
Cheers
Chris

Beebee · Post by **Beebee** » 23 Mar 2010 13:51

I think Bulk Rename Utility will do the job. It is a free program and is an excellent renaming tool. If you decide to try it, at the bottom of the screen are the fields used to rename your files. First select the files you want to rename, you need to use number 3 field - Replace (in your case Smith) (with SMITH) - and check the Match Case box, in the main window you can see the alteration before actually making any permanent changes, once you are happy, then click on the RENAME button on the bottom right.

lesleyl · Post by **lesleyl** » 18 Apr 2010 19:31

Irfanview (free downloadable) is also worth a look
Apart from batch renaming, you can do batch resizing and conversion of graphics files to another graphics format.
Good all-rounder to have on your desktop

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