Saving 1000's of filenames as a simple textfile

C

Cam

Hi,
Was wondering how I would extract just the filenames from
a huge directory of pictures. It's not as simple as just
selecting them all, copying and then pasting into Word or
notepad. Word insists on pasting the full image. Was
mucking about with pasting them as hyperlinks but to my
knowledge, Word is only capable of doing one hyperlink at
a time. Any ideas or simple downloadable utilities that
have this capability?

Thanks

Cam
Townsville, Australia
 
T

Taurarian

How to create a context menu item that when clicked will generate an
editable text file listing of the selected directory.

To create the entry in the context menu it's necessary to first create a
..bat file. The format for the .bat file is:
dir /a /-p /o:gen >filelisting.txt

The name of the .txt file can be whatever you'd like it called. In the
example above it's filelisting.

Create the file in Notepad and save the file in your Windows folder. Make
sure that the file extension is .bat (if necessary rename the file and
change the extension from .txt to bat).

Once the .bat file has been created the next step is to make it functional
and easily accessible by integrating it into the context menu that opens
when a right click is executed.

To do this:

Open Windows Explorer, click Tools, then click Folder Options.

Click the File Types tab, and then click Folder.

Click the Advanced button and then click New.

In the Action box, type the name that you want to appear in the context
menu. For example, Create File Listing.

Browse to the location where the .bat file you created is located, select it
and let it be the Application Used to Perform Actions.

Click OK, Apply and OK again to close all the open windows.

That's it !

To test, open up Windows Explorer, navigate to whatever folder you want to
use as the basis for the file list and right click to open the context menu.
Click on the Create File Listing item and the list will be generated and
displayed at the bottom of the open window as filelisting.txt. Since it is a
text file it can be fully edited, copied, pasted, printed, etc for any
purpose.

Note: If for any reason you want to remove the Create File Listing entry
from the context menu it will be necessary to edit the registry. This can be
accomplished by navigating to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create_File_Listing using regedit and
deleting the Create_File_Listing key in the left pane. Close regedit and
reboot to complete removal.
 
G

Guest

Tauranian,

Let me just say that you are a complete and utter legend.

Thank you muchly.
 
Y

Yves Alarie

Very nice. Thanks.
Jose said:
There is a tiny utility (155 KB) at:
http://home.worldonline.dk/ninotech/freeutil.htm#pathcopy
http://www.image.dk/~ninotech

it adds a Copy Path item to the right click, It will copy the path or
filename for the selected files.

I add this to every machine I work on. It is fabulous.

Download the zip file right click on it and extract it somewhere. Go to that
folder. Right click on PATHCOPY.INF and select install. Start using it. You
will become a fan.
 
Y

Yves Alarie

Your suggestion is even better.
I used a photo file, copied the path.
I open the photo using Microsoft Picture It Digital Image Pro version 7.0. I
click on Paste. Bang. The path is added on top of the photo! Very nifty.
Tried the same using Paint or using PhotoShop 7, however, Paste is not
available with them.
 
J

Jose

I love this utility. It should be in the OS for now, but Microsift has long
term strategic plans and having people being aware of a file path is not a
part of it so I can see why they avoid it, probably also why the address bar
is not on by default. In the future, if we want to be a part of the
revolution, we will provide meaningful meta data for all our files and a
database will be the file system. You provide detailed search criteria and
the results appear instantaneously. This works and is being used with image
databases. How do you think large outfits keep track of their images (I'm
talking AP, reuters, CNN). Might be scary but the current filing system
stinks, especially when a file could be placed in more than one folder.
 

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