32 character file names for your cataloging program?

[Al]

Hi, I was reading Peter Krogh's Digital Asset Managment (the DAM book).  He said file names should not have more than 32 characters, with no spaces, and no punctuation except dashes and underscores.  Will this be something one should adhere to in anticipation of using your upcoming cataloging program?  I'm waiting patiently for the program, but need to assign file names now!  Thanks, Al.

[Kirk Baker]

Hi, I was reading Peter Krogh's Digital Asset Managment (the DAM book).  He said file names should not have more than 32 characters, with no spaces, and no punctuation except dashes and underscores.  Will this be something one should adhere to in anticipation of using your upcoming cataloging program?  I'm waiting patiently for the program, but need to assign file names now!  Thanks, Al.

We will have no such limitation.  255 character file names should be fine.  But I don't really see why anyone would need filenames over 100 characters.  It would be better to put more descriptions in the captions of the photos than to make a description in the file name.

Peter may have been trying to protect you for the case where you may want to burn a CD or a DVD which may have problems with long filenames.  If you never plan to archive to optical media then you shouldn't need to worry about 32 character filenames.

-Kirk