Batch file needed to "trim" a file name

[CindyM]

I have a lot of files that I need to rename by trimming off the first 24 characters (letters and numbers).  This is what a typical file name looks like:

U 0104-004 1383 1923 00 Doe, John.doc

So basically I would like the file name to begin with the person's last name.  The numbers and letters preceding the person's last name do not stay the same, but the number of characters is constant.  I basically need to trim off the first 24 characters.  I would like to be able to do this for all files in a folder.

Thanks!
Cindy

[Deerpark]

Does it need to be a batch job?
There's plenty of software that can trim characters in filenames for you. Ant Renamer for example is free.

[CindyM]

I will be doing this for loads of files, so I just don't have to have to rename them individually.  I'll check out the software you mentioned.  Thanks!

[DaveLembke]

Only problem you could face if trimming common names is that the unique identifier is clipped and you then end up with two John Smith's. So if this is a very large pool of names, be sure that you dont delete people from duplicates as a result of the clipped identifiers.

Dave

[Sidewinder]

The numbers and letters preceding the person's last name do not stay the same, but the number of characters is constant

This might help:

Code: [Select]

@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-8 delims=. " %%a in ('dir /b *.doc') do (
ren "%%a %%b %%c %%d %%e %%f %%g.doc" "%%f %%g.doc"
)

Renames that produce duplicates will fail. The original name will remain intact.

 

Edit: Deleted the /s switch on the dir command. Sorry for any confusion.