Naming Conventions

Do's
and
Don't's

special characters

[NEVER EVER]

Avoid using special characters in a file name. 

\ / : * ? " < > | [ ] & $ , . 

Do not use full stops (full stop = the .) anywhere in your file name

only at the end, before the file type.

(.jpg .tiff .pdf etc.)

special characters

[NEVER EVER-EXCEPTION]

Don't use spaces

Use underscores instead of periods or spaces 

underscore_OR-dash 

Keep under 25 characters

Should be sufficient to capture descriptive inormation

World_War_I/Posters/Hustrulid/0001.tif

wwI_poster_owens_0001.tif

Include the date at the end

include dates and format them consistently

YYMMDD

useful sorting tool

needs to be consistent

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD

150928

Include a version number

  • update
     
  • new
     
  • old
     
  • final
     
  • finalFINAL

more effective than...

v = version number:  v01

  • THIS_IS_THE_FINAL
     
  • JUST KIDDING THIS IS THE FINAL_FINAL VERSION FOR REAL THIS TIME
     
  • ​Where is the final 

Be consistent

The most important rule of file-naming is to be consistent.

tips and tricks:

CamelCaseNamingStyle

tips and tricks:

Use hyphens to denote version
or hierarchy

HustrulidG_hierarchy-v01

tips and tricks:

Use folders for hierarchy

tips and tricks:

variations and minor changes 

03a 03b 03c

next version

04a 04b 04c