How do I name files?

In DOS and the Windows 3.1 version, you used to have to use a strict naming convention that limited the filename to 8 characters separated by a 3 letter extension which described what type of file it was (application that created the file). Naming files with names that you or anyone else could easily identify what the file contained was very difficult due to this limited naming convention.

Beginning with Windows95, you can use up to 255 characters, including spaces. The only characters that you cannot use are:

because Windows uses them for other purposes. So, instead of having to name a file, ‘budget00.txt’, the file can now be named, ‘budget for the spring 2000 fashion show’ and be descriptive, as you want. You or anyone else can read the title and know the contents without having to open the file.

When you use a Windows machine, the 3-character extension (for instance .doc with Microsoft Word documents) is automatically placed in the name of the file. This is not true with the Macintosh. If Macintosh users want to share their files with Windows users – they must add the file extension!!! Some important file extensions (the three characters after the dot) that are important to know are:

.doc – Microsoft Word documents

.ppt – PowerPoint documents

.xls – Excel documents

Other extensions that you might see include:

.txt – straight text files – unlike a word processor these files have no formatting

.pdf – Adobe Acrobat files – frequently used on the web since you do not need a specific word processing program to open them.

.rtf – rich text formatting – this type of file can be opened by all word processors, but it does not keep the same amount of formatting as a straight word processing document. It does have more formatting then a .txt document

Continue to the next section of the File management Tutorial - How do I create and organize files and folders?