NAMING COMPUTER FILES TO
FIND AND SHOW THEM IN TIMELINE ORDER
©2015 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
- Welcome and Introduction
- Scans, Screenshots, and Other Files
- Finding and Renaming Files
- Naming System for Documents and Portraits
- Naming System for Photos Other Than Portraits
- Using EVERYTHING to Show Items in Interactive
Timeline Order
- Conclusions
This page was last updated 2015-10-06.
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WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
- Instructors are Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah and Linda Snow
Westover ( linda.westover@gmail.com
) of Orem, Utah.
- These notes are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
.
- Tips: (1) Easy to put an icon on
your desktop for the URL for these notes or any
other website; just drag the icon from in front of
the address in your browser to your desktop.
(2) To open a link from here in another tab,
but keep your place in these notes, hold down the
Control key while clicking the link.
- The problem: How to save and name files on
your computer so you can find them easily and they
form interactive timelines for people.
SCANS, SCREENSHOTS, AND OTHER FILES
- Scans and screenshots are pictures you make of
documents, text, images, or things on your
computer screen, that you want to keep for any
reason.
- FHC's have good machines to scan hard copy
documents and photographs, so you don't have to
own a scanner yourself
- FASTSTONE CAPTURE 5.3
- Good freeware program for screenshots
-- Note: versions AFTER 5.3 are not
free
- Download version 5.3 from several websites,
e.g. http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html
- Will also run from a flash drive, so you can
use it at a FHC or library and bring the
screenshots home on your flash drive
- Has several capture options, including
capturing the entire scrolling window -- other
screen capture programs don't do this
- Screenshots you make are not text-searchable,
but you can save them as pdf and use the
freeware PDF-XCHANGE EDITOR (VIEWER)
to make it searchable by OCR (Optical Character
Recognition) -- http://www.tracker-software.com/product/downloads/
FINDING AND RENAMING FILES
- Goal in naming files is so you can find items
easily and they sort in chronological order --
takes time for labeling, but saves you time later
- First problem is finding all files on your
computer about a person since you probably didn't
use a systematic naming pattern before
- Use the freeware program EVERYTHING -- http://voidtools.com/
-- and search your computer with keywords and
combinations that might be in the file names --
EVERYTHING finds them anywhere on your computer
- You can rename the files right in EVERYTHING
or else highlight and drag them to a separate
folder in Windows Explorer to rename them
- Sometimes helpful to eliminate duplicates
before you start relabeling, but you may not
know they are duplicates until renamed and they
sort together
- If they are in a separate folder you can run a
duplicate file finder program on it, e.g.
Duplicate Cleaner Free -- http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/dcdownloads.html
-- but it is sometimes simpler to rename and see
them sorted together before deciding which to
delete
- Renaming files
- Can rename any file in EVERYTHING by
highlighting it and right-clicking -- may need
to open the file to see its contents to know
what to rename it
- Windows Explorer has a panel to see the
contents and rename files without opening them
-- click on View Panel (upper right corner) and
highlight any file to see its contents; can then
rename it without opening it; saves lots of key
strokes
- With files in a single folder you can use
programs like BULK RENAME UTILITY -- http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php
-- to enter prefixes and replace parts of file
names in whole groups of files at once
NAMING SYSTEM FOR DOCUMENTS AND PORTRAITS
- Example of my file naming system for documents
and portraits --
ManwaringDiane(Snow)(1934-2012)-2012-10-13-Obituary-SaltLakeDeseretNews-Ancestry-com--2014-04-10.pdf
- File name: "SurnameGivenNames(Married
name)(birth year-death year)-(Event date
YYYY-MM-DD)-Event-Description-Source--DateScannedOrScreenshot.ext"
- SurnameGivenNames at start makes these sort
together for each person
- Maiden name of woman allows all files before
and after marriage to sort
together; married name in parentheses helps
identify who she is at a glance
- Birth and death years makes time period clear
and distinguishes people with same name -- no
need for Jr., Sr., etc.
- Event date in International Date Format
YYYY-MM-DD makes files sort chronologically
in EVERYTHING (see below) and automatically
gives you an interactive timeline -- putting the
date anywhere else in the title would not make
items alphabetize for the person chronologically
- Keywords for event shows what the file
pertains to and helps when searching later --
some key words I use: Birth, Marriage,
Death, News, LDS, Doc, School, Census, Portrait,
Letter, Medical, Directory, Military, Audio,
Talk; can use as many keywords as you want
- If file pertains to entire life, I put the
keywords like History, Pedigree, and
Biography after the name, but before
the date, so these all sort together after the
timeline files
- I don't leave spaces in file names since some
programs put other characters in empty spaces
and make them harder to read
- Files renamed this way jump right to where
they belong in the list in EVERYTHING without
you having to move them
- Can keep these files in one folder or scattered
in many folders and EVERYTHING still shows them in
order -- see below
- For other types of files I use a code at the
start, e.g. LTR- for a letter, PHT- for a photo,
ORD- for an order, etc. -- could spell the words
out completely with no abbreviations, but shorter
code gives me more space for the rest of the title
NAMING SYSTEM FOR PHOTOS OTHER THAN PORTRAITS
- The above system could be used for photos, but
having too many photos clutters up the timeline
for a person
- Example of my naming system for photos (other
than portraits) --
PHT-2004-01-20-10h23m16s--DianeManwaringSnow(1931-2012)&DonaldRaySnow(1960-)InBarbadosArchives--P1200004.JPG
- All photo originals are kept in a folder by year
they were taken with the name the camera put on
them, e.g. IMG2456.jpg, so I can find the
original, if I ever need it
- Copies of the photos are put in folders by year
they were taken and then renamed as follows:
- Freeware program NAMEXIF -- http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html
-- extracts from the file metadata the date and
time the photo was taken and puts it in
International Date Format in front of camera's
name of photo:
YYYY-MM-DD-HHh-MMm-SSs--[camera name of file]
for date and time
- Freeware program BULK RENAME UTILITY -- http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php
-- adds PHT- (for photo) at front of name
- I put description of people and event in the
name after date and time, i.e.
YYYY-MM-DD-HHh-MMm-SSs--[DescriptiveWords]--[camera
name of photo].ext
- For scanned photos and slides you have to
enter the date yourself since their metadata has
the scanned date, not the date the photo was
taken
- Photos named this way jump to chronological
order in EVERYTHING (see below) and put pictures
of same event together regardless of the camera --
date and time must be set correctly on each camera
or else you have to modify them yourself in the
name
- With this naming it is easy to find photos by
date, names, or events; if I haven't entered the
details in the photo name yet, I can still find
them by looking in my appointment books to find
the date I was at that location and then search
for that date using EVERYTHING
- PICASA and other programs help in organizing
photos since they do facial recognition, but
results are stored in a separate file and don't
transfer with the photos, though PICASA now has a
way to enter some information in the metadata
USING EVERYTHING TO SHOW ITEMS IN INTERACTIVE
TIMELINE ORDER
- Freeware program EVERYTHING -- http://voidtools.com/
-- makes searching for files quick and easy no
matter where they are on your computer, if they
have appropriate names
- To search with EVERYTHING
- Click Open New Search Window -- can open as
many copies as you want, e.g. you could have one
for a person's timeline and another for the
photos of that person
- Search syntax for EVERYTHING: space =
AND, | ("pipe") = OR, ! = NOT, < > =
grouping, " " = exact phrase
- For a timeline enter person's name as above --
result will be a chronological timeline of the
person's life since date in International Date
Format makes them sort chronologically --
timeline of file names is interactive since you
can click on any file to open it and show
contents, e.g. a certificate or newspaper
article
- To see list of particular types of items for a
person, such as School or News, add these terms
as keywords in search terms; you get
chronological list of just those items -- very
helpful if writing a book about person and you
need information about particular events, e.g.
military service or education
- To get photos for the person enter person's
name and PHT -- photos are listed in
chronological order for the person
- Can do screenshots or text files of such
directory lists to have timelines for that
person
- If you notice misspellings, etc., you can
rename files right in EVERYTHING and they jump
to where they belong in the list
- Once you see what makes the system work you
can modify parts of it the way you want
- To show political, geographical, religious,
and other major events, you could include simple
additional files from a timeline such as http://www.ourtimelines.com/
named so they sort chronologically with your
other files
- Files named this way and placed in a separate
folder will sort chronologically without using
EVERYTHING -- easy to move files to a separate
folder by highlighting them in EVERYTHING and
moving them to a folder in Windows Explorer; they
will still be listed in EVERYTHING, but their
paths will all be changed; if you copy, rather
than move them to another folder, they will show
up duplicated in EVERYTHING
- This process handles an unlimited number of
files and they automatically jump to where they
belong, as soon as you name them with the pattern
- Can copy the files to CDs or DVDs and these
would be interactive timelines with all the
documents, etc.
CONCLUSIONS
- The crucial parts of this system are (1)
the file naming, and (2) using a program to
find and sort them; renaming takes time, but is
worth it and allows you to see the person's life
in interactive chronological sequence
- The freeware program EVERYTHING is extremely
useful for this and many other things and I use it
many times every day.
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Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page
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Class
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