Windows Filename Conventions

Making Sure Your Documents Don’t Have an Identity Crisis

There are certain guidelines to be aware of when naming your documents that will ensure that they are
readable on the majority of systems that you may come in contact with. They are presented here with
the understanding that our information needs to be accessible now - and in the future – possibly within
several different types of computing environments.

Macintosh users will want to take special note because, although their systems allow more freedom in
filenames, sharing documents with others requires a basic understanding of Microsoft Windows’ behavior.

1. Microsoft Windows may not behave correctly if you try to use any of the following punctuation in a
filename:

\/:*?"<>|
For example, a document named ‘Budget 10/5/97.xls’ might be interpreted by some programs as a
document named ’97.xls’ that resides in a path of ‘file:\\Budget 10\5\’.

2. Many Windows systems depend on a correct filename extension (the last three letters after the period)
to know which application to use to open it. These are usually added automatically by Windows and
normally should not be altered by users.

Some familiar examples included:

Extension Document Type Extension Document Type

.doc Microsoft Word .exe Executable application
.xls Microsoft Excel .bmp Bitmapped graphic
.ppt Microsoft PowerPoint .jpg JPEG photo
.txt Plain text file .eps Postscript graphic
.rtf Rich text file .mpg Compressed movie
.htm Web page .mp3 Compressed audio

3. Using a period in the wrong place could be confusing. For instance, the file:

‘Budget Managmt. Proposal.doc’

…could be interpreted as a document called:

‘Budget Managmt’

…with a file extension of (the first three characters after the first period):

‘. Pr’

…which, of course, might confuse a computer trying to figure out which application to use when launching
the document. Avoid using period except for the one just before the filename extension.