File naming conventions

G

gidget

I received an excel worksheet. It's named "fileA 24Aug2005.xls". When i
open it up on my mac in excel, the date truncates to something like
"fileA #17D114.xls. This wouldn't be a problem, except that when i
print their file from my computer, the new name, prints at the bottom
of the worksheet which won't fly because the new name printed wouldn't
match their database.

2 questions.

1) where is this file name stored and where is the command that tells
it to print at the bottom, because i don't see it on my screen, only
the printed copy.

2) how can i open a file without changing the system changing the
name?

very grateful for any insight.

Mary
 
J

JE McGimpsey

XL v.X limits filenames to 31 characters - if the filename exceeds that
length, the last few characters are hashed (not on the original file,
but in the titlebar and internally during the session, such as with the
filename in the View/Header and footer dialog). OS X doesn't change the
filename, and if you save the file, the name is preserved, unless you do
a Save As.

XL04 removed that restriction.

There's no workaround within XL. However, there are applescripts that
allow you to batch change filenames to shorter versions. Of course, the
filenames still wouldn't match "their" database.
 
G

gidget

thanks so much for those words of wisdom. at least i can explain it to
the client! thanks again...
 
G

gidget

Hello again, i'm at it again with this crazy file name problem. This
question is so stupid, how can i upgrade to XL04? is this free or paid?
- i'm currently at Excel X Version 10.1.0 on the Mac. Can someone simply
point me to the correct site to download the correct patch for this
naming issue? Microsoft is so cumbersome that I'm half crazy trying to
decipher what i need... thanks so much for any insight...
Mary
 
D

Dave Peterson

If you don't get an answer in this newsgroup, maybe you'll get one here:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.mac.office.excel
 
J

JE McGimpsey

gidget said:
Hello again, i'm at it again with this crazy file name problem. This
question is so stupid, how can i upgrade to XL04? is this free or paid?
- i'm currently at Excel X Version 10.1.0 on the Mac. Can someone simply
point me to the correct site to download the correct patch for this
naming issue? Microsoft is so cumbersome that I'm half crazy trying to
decipher what i need... thanks so much for any insight...
Click to expand...

There's no patch. MacOffice v.X uses Mac OS X system routines that are
limited to 32 characters, so it will never be able to generate long file
names.

Note that you're using a very old version of Office v.X - the latest
update is 10.1.6, which you can download, free, from MacTopia Downloads:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx

Again, you can open files with long names in Office v.X, and save them
again without a problem, even though you'll see the hashed name in the
title bar. You just can't use Save As with a long name - though you can
Save As with a short name and then rename the file in Finder. Depending
on the structure of your filenames, you might even be able to automate
this using a Folder Action script.

MacOffice 2004 is an upgrade product, which means you'll have to pay for
it. Go to MacTopia:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/

where, about half-way down the page is a section labeled "How to buy".
 
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