General File And Folder Name Practices

The following office file and folder naming standards have been developed over the years working with different programs. We have come to find out, through experience, that file names are handled differently by different types of programs and services. Because there are different server types, operating systems, ftp protocols, browsers, databases, and programs that handle file names differently, we have developed a set of office standards that have encompassed our computing needs.

TBG OFFICE FILE AND FOLDER NAMING STANDARDS

• File and Folder names should be as small as possible (length and size)
• File and folder names should be as meaningful as possible (e.g., instead of dsc00035.jpg, 2010-03-10_sitevisit.jpg)
• File and folder names when using the date should be in a "yyyy-mm-dd" format (e.g., instead of 03102010, 2010-03-10)
• File and folder names can only contain the symbols "(", ")", "-", and "_" when symbols are needed.
• File and folder names should not contain any of these characters ! @ # $ % ^ & * = + ~ ` [ ] . , { } | \ " ; : < > ?
• In case you missed it above NO PERIODS period!
  
• Folders should not be created when a simple file name will do
• File and folder names can and will be renamed, if they have periods and/or any of the symbols listed above in them.

SOME REASONS WHY THESE STANDARDS EXIST
There are reasons for all of these and granted you might not care too much about them, but these are some (not all) of the reasons why we have file naming standards the way we do.

• Windows won't even allow some of these characters to be used.
• Different databases handle symbols differently (e.g., Sepialine, Tape Backups, Exchange, IIS).
• Access via dos commands can be tricky.
• When searching for files "*" means any character, "#" means any number "@" means any alpha character "%" means space.
• Microsoft's MSDN article on naming conventions say that a period should be used to separate the base file name from the extension. Program conflicts can arise when using periods, because different programs have differing rules when it comes to handling path names and file names.
• Microsoft's MSDN article on file naming issues with Share Portal and Share Point Sever has problems with file names that have periods. There are some specific ways around this, but we would rather be safe then sorry.
• The more folder names that exist in a file, the longer it take a programs to open.
• Autodesk products have had previous problems with file and folder names that have brackets, symbols, and long names (previous versions had 32 character limit). They may accept these now, but keeping things short is still a good practice.