Photos to a CD-RW: arranging them according to date.

  • Thread starter Thread starter dancingphil
  • Start date Start date
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dancingphil

Hi,
On Windows XP I am trying to get some photos onto a CD-RW.
I can get the photos on the CD, no problem: but how can I
get them arranged on the CD chronologically, as opposed to
alphabetically?? It's driving me insane! I don't want to
have to rename every single one and put numbers at the
beginning (that'd take ages, and there should be another
way). Any advice?
dancingphil
 
Hi,

I found what appeared to be a solution, but:
-I selected all the files, and renamed the first XXX.jpg,
which meant all the subsequent files were renamed XXX.jpg
(1), XXX.jpg (2), etc. automatically. So far so good.

-But when they were written to the CD-RW, shock! Horror!
They were arranged not in numerical order, but like this:
1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 2, 20, 22, 23, 3, and so on. See the
pattern? How can I get Windows to read the photos off the
CD as it reads the hard drive- i.e. according the dates of
the photos, or even in bog-standard numerical order?

I am fully aware (as said in above post) that I can rename
the photos to 1xxx.jpg, 2xxx.jpg, etc (or so I assume),
but please, please, there has to be a fast way of doing
this. Despite my writing two posts about it, I do have
better things to do with my time, having 500 photos plus
to get through! :(

Any help would be much appreciated!

dancingphil
 
If you arrange your images in the correct
order and then add a number in front of
each name the files will stay in that order.

0001 sunset
0002 piano
0003 road trip
0004 birthday cake

If you need to batch renumber your files,
the excellent freeware IrfanView can do it.

IrfanView 3.85
http://www.tucows.com/preview/194967.html
(get the plug-ins too)

--

John Inzer
Picture It! MVP
return e-mail disabled

Picture It! Support Center
http://support.microsoft.com/?pr=pic
 
Thanks John, that's very helpful. For the people making
the next Windows: it's kind of disappointing that Windows
can't do that kind of thing anyway. Perhaps another little
feature to add to Windows 2004 or whatever? :)

dancingphil
 
XP will batch rename for you.
Very easy to do, here are the rules.



Copy the photos to a new folder.

Open the new folder. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter A. This
will select (highlight in blue) all the files in the folder.

Right click on the first file (important to right click on the first file
because renaming will start from there).

Click on Rename on the opening menu.

Type in the name you want, to replace the current name. Any system will
work, such as year, month, event. For example type in:

2003_09_Virginia Beach Vacation (1).jpg

and press Enter.

XP will automatically rename all the files (1), (2), (3), etc.



Two important things when renaming using the above method.

1. Look at the name of the above file, you must include a space between the
last character of the file name and (1)

2. When you rename, don't forget to add .jpg after (1). If you forget, XP
will warn you, so enter .jpg after this warning. If you don't, you will not
be able to open the file. If you still do not enter .jpg after the warning,
don't worry. Rename again and enter .jpg



You can rename any time and as many times as you want. You are not dependent
on the camera wizard to rename.

You can rename portions of files in a folder, just select the group you want
and right click on the first one and rename from there.



You can do even better than this. Suppose you want a slide show and you want
the last three pictures taken to be the first three or in between some other
photos. Easy to do. Open the folder in thumbnail view, use your mouse to
place them in the order you want. Select all the photos and rename. The (1),
(2), (3), etc will be added in the order you placed the thumbnails.

Convenient if you want to make a slide show of pictures from different
folders. Just make a new folder, copy the photos you want in the new folder,
place the thumbnails in the order you want and rename.

You are not restricted to only one name and you can control the order in
which each group will open, by placing a number up front of the file name
for each group. You may have photos of Christmas, Easter, New Year etc. and
of different years. Once you have the thumbnails in the order you want,
select the first group, right click on the first thumbnail in the group and
rename:

1_2002 Easter (1).jpg

Then select the second group and rename

2_2002 Christmas (1).jpg

Placing 1_, 2_, etc in front will control the order of each group and (1)
controls the order within each group.

If you want to add another group later and you want these photos to be, say
between 1_ and 2_, use 1a_ in front of the file name.

You may also want to add some more photos in a particular group, say your
Christmas group. No problem. Copy the files in the folder, move the
thumbnails in the group you want to add them to. Select all the thumbnails
in the group, right click on the first one and rename. When you rename, you
must change the name in order for rename to take place. Add something like
XYZ after Christmas. Once renaming is done, select the same files again and
rename again. Remove the XYZ and you will be back to the original name.



Note: There is a disadvantage to changing the original name of files. This
is why I recommend at the start to make a new folder and copy your original
files in the new folder before renaming. The disadvantage is this. Many have
the option of video out from the camera to display the pictures from the
memory card to a TV for a slide show. If you change the file names and copy
the files back to your memory card to display on your TV (or even to just
look at them on the LCD of the camera) your camera will not be able to read
the files. You can always rename, using the same format (8 characters) that
your camera uses, but now you have to rename each file. So, be careful what
you do with your original files.



Note: Although I recommend making a new folder and copying your files there
before renaming, there is also another way to do this and you may prefer
this once you are comfortable with renaming. Here is how to do it.

Open the folder to see your files. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the
letter A to select (highlight in blue) all the files. Hold the Ctrl key down
and press the letter C. This makes a copy of all the files to your
clipboard. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the letter V. This copies
(pastes) all the files back in your folder. The file names will be the same,
but the words "Copy of" will be in front of the file names. You then rename
Copy of files.

This way your original files and renamed files are in the same folder.

This is also very useful when you want to edit a photo with software. You
always edit "Copy of", never edit your original file.
 
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