Bulk Rename Utility

I need someone to rename picture files for me for uploading to our corporate document management system. BRU does exactly what I need, but the user cannot install utilities on their PC but can run command line utilities.

What I would like to do is the following:

There is a folder on the C:\ drive called Photos. Within this is are user added folders for dates, e.g. 10-09-2010.

Photos come from a data capture device, so have names like - "002RS100608100954.bmp". To make sense of it on the DMS we need a prefix, which in our case is "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - " followed by the date of the folder they are in. So a file will look like this - "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - 10-09-2010 - 002RS100608100954.bmp".

I want to make it easy for the user (they are not based in my office, so I cannot assist them easily. I would like them to be able to create a new folder within C:\Photos with a date, drop some photos into this folder then run a shortcut (batch file shortcut with a pretty icon) that does the renaming - without needing to navigate to C:\Photos\10-09-2010\ to execute the command.

Any ideas how I go about doing this?

You could put an batch.cmd and the BRC32.exe into the "C:\Photos\" folder

The batch looks like

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
CD %1
..\brc32.exe  rename all files to "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - %1 - 002RS100608100954.bmp"

but as far as i remember does BRC not expand such vars.


But before i test this with BRC you can try this batch
which works without any third-party tool like BRC:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
SET FOLDER=%~n1

%~d1
CD %1

ECHO We working at path
CD
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO Press Ctrl+C if this path is wrong.
ECHO Press ENTER to continue.
PAUSE >NUL

for /f %%F in ('dir /b *.bmp') do ren "%%F" "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - %FOLDER% - %%F"

ECHO Done!
PAUSE

Put this batch into your C:\Photos\ -folder
and the people can drag&drop an "10-09-2010" -folder onto the batch.
The batch will then rename the names as you had described.

TEST THIS WITH SOME TEST FILES FIRST!!!
Copy a few "10-09-2010" -folders to C:\Temp and test it there. At best on an test-pc or in an virtual-pc.
Batch files can go wrong sometimes and i have not tested this on your pc..

nimdy wrote:I need someone to rename picture files for me for uploading to our corporate document management system.
BRU does exactly what I need, but the user cannot install utilities on their PC but can run command line utilities.

What I would like to do is the following:

There is a folder on the C:\ drive called Photos. Within this is are user added folders for dates, e.g. 10-09-2010.

Photos come from a data capture device, so have names like - "002RS100608100954.bmp".
To make sense of it on the DMS we need a prefix, which in our case is "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - " followed by the date of the folder they are in.
So a file will look like this - "F999 - 9.7.6 - DCD Photos - 10-09-2010 - 002RS100608100954.bmp".

I want to make it easy for the user (they are not based in my office, so I cannot assist them easily.
I would like them to be able to create a new folder within C:\Photos with a date, drop some photos into this folder
then run a shortcut (batch file shortcut with a pretty icon) that does the renaming
- without needing to navigate to C:\Photos\10-09-2010\ to execute the command.

Any ideas how I go about doing this?

I had no idea windows rename would be enough to do this. I'm not sure its working quite how I want it to. It will not work when I put the batch file into the C:\photos folder, but will when I put the batch in c:\photos\10-09-2010 - but it doesnt copy the date in.

Would it be possible for the batch script to ask the user for a date and pass this through to the rename command - that way I can negate having to put folders into c:\photos.

[edit]
Sorry I see what you mean about dropping the folder onto the batch. That works perfectly. Thanks!

nimdy wrote:[edit]
Sorry I see what you mean about dropping the folder onto the batch. That works perfectly. Thanks!

Great it works for you. Thanks for the feed back.

- - -

nimdy wrote:Would it be possible for the batch script to ask the user for a date and pass this through to the rename command

This is possible too.

Instead of:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
SET FOLDER=%~n1

%~d1
CD %1

ECHO We working at path

try this:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
SET /P FOLDER=Folder name to use:

ECHO Name to use is: %FOLDER%
ECHO We working at path

Note: start THIS batch INSIDE such "10-09-2010" -folders, since we didn't 'CD' here anymore.



_

Thanks again Stefan. Both work great - i'm not sure which one to use now!

I dont suppose you could help me out with the next step of my problem. I need to convert these BMPs to JPGs (a 40kb JPG is better than a 1mb BMP!) Are you aware of any free windows command line utilities that can do this so I can add it to the end of this batch script?

nimdy wrote:Thanks again Stefan. Both work great - i'm not sure which one to use now!

I dont suppose you could help me out with the next step of my problem. I need to convert these BMPs to JPGs (a 40kb JPG is better than a 1mb BMP!) Are you aware of any free windows command line utilities that can do this so I can add it to the end of this batch script?

Sure.
I didn't do this on my own,but you may take an look at

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php
Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:
* Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g. PNG to JPEG).


I myself convert sometimes with IrfanView which can be used by command line too, see:

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/graphics/irfantut/commopti.html
i_view32 c:\test.bmp /c=c:\giftest.gif

Convert file: 'c:\test.bmp' to 'c:\giftest.gif' without GUI
(Note: supported are all IrfanView Read/Save formats



http://malektips.com/irfanview_3_0035.html
irfanview SOURCE_FILE /convert=DESTINATION_FILE
SOURCE_FILE: The path to the image you wish to convert
DESTTINATION_FILE: The path to the converted image. Choose one of the file formats supported by IrfanView.

For example, the following DOS command would convert image "football.jpg" to a PNG format with file "football.png":
irfanview football.jpg /convert=football.png

You may want to read the help or google for more infos.

Thanks.

Neither options seem to suit my ideals. imagemagick needs to be installed, so wont run on my clients locked down systems, and as far as I can tell irfanview doesnt have a command/switch to convert all images in a folder, else this one would have been ideal.

OK, once more.

nimdy wrote:.. and as far as I can tell irfanview doesnt have a command/switch to convert all images in a folder,

Didn't you have an help file with your IrfanView app?

Mine says:
Beispiel für Konvertierung:
i_view32.exe c:\test.bmp /convert=c:\giftest.GIF
Konvertiere Datei 'c:\test.bmp' nach 'c:\giftest.GIF' ohne GUI.

i_view32.exe c:\*.jpg /convert=d:\temp\*.gif
i_view32.exe c:\*.jpg /resize=(500,300) /convert=d:\temp\*.png
i_view32.exe /filelist=c:\mypics.txt /resize=(500,300) /aspectratio /resample /convert=d:\temp\*.png