Apple Aperture - Manual (Page 106)

106 Part I Interface and Acquisition
Applying Valid Filenames
Proper filenaming is one of the most critical aspects of media and project management.
When you capture your digital master files, consider how and where your files may be
used in the future. Naming your files simply and consistently makes it easier to share
media among multiple photographers, transfer projects to other Aperture systems, move
files across a network, and properly restore archived projects. The following sections
present several issues to consider when naming project files and image files.
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 Mac OS X and other UNIX-based operating systems, Mac OS 9, and Windows. 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.
Avoid Example characters Reasons
File separators : (colon)
/ (slash)
\ (backslash) 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
other applications.
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 white space
characters, and use the
underscore (_) character instead.