Avoiding Special Characters
The most conservative filenaming conventions provide the most cross-platform
compatibility. This means that your filenames will work in different operating systems,
such as Windows, Mac OS X and other Unix operating systems, and Mac OS 9. You also
need to consider filenaming when you transfer files via the Internet, where you can never
be certain what computer platform your files may be stored on, even if temporarily.
Most special characters should be avoided. Here are some suggested conservative
filenaming guidelines for maximum cross-platform compatibility:
Avoid
Example characters
Reasons
File separators
: (colon)
/ (forward-slash)
\ (backward-slash)
You cannot use colons (:) in
the names of files and folders
because Mac OS 9 (Classic)
uses this character to separate
directories in pathnames. In
addition, some applications may
not allow you to use slashes (/)
in the names of items.
These characters are directory
separators for Mac OS 9,
Mac OS X, and DOS (Windows)
respectively.
Special characters not included
in your native alphabet
¢ ™
These characters may not be
supported or may be difficult to
work with when exported to
certain file formats, such as EDL,
OMF, or XML.
Punctuation marks, parentheses,
quotation marks, brackets, and
operators.
. , [ ] { } ( ) ! ; “ ‘ * ? < > |
These characters are often used
in scripting and programming
languages.
White space characters such
as spaces, tabs, new lines, and
carriage returns (the last two
are uncommon).
White space is handled
differently in different
programming languages and
operating systems, so certain
processing scripts and
applications may treat your files
differently than expected. The
most conservative filenames
avoid all use of whitespace
characters, and use the
(underscore) _ character instead.
Chapter 3
Understanding Projects, Clips, and Sequences
39
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