File names - restricted characters

[Deb]

Does anyone know of any character limitations in a file name?

When I first learned Word Processing (MANY years ago), there were characters
that you could not use when naming a file, including dots or spaces. It now
seems that dots and spaces are acceptable (I still don't use them) but from
a programming perspective, what characters should I avoid?

Word HELP was no help, and I even tried adding special characters in a file
name but didn't even get a warning message, Word just didn't allow me to save
the file.

 

[Gordon Bentley-Mix at news.microsoft.com]

Deb,

It is my understanding that the restrictions on file names are enforced by
Windows rather than Word itself. Accordingly, see the Wikipedia article
'Filename' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename) for more information.
Google may also provide some useful information
(http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q=windows+file+name+character+restrictions&meta=)
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP

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