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What name should I give to a file that I want to publish on my web site?
Here are a few simple guidelines for naming files that you intend to publish on your web site.
Before you send a file to your web team to publish on your web site:
- Choose a simple and descriptive name for the document. "SmithSchoolReport-11-2-2007.pdf" is better than "Smith.final.updated.JM 11-2.pdf". The first file name is simple and descriptive, while the second is a little cryptic and reveals perhaps too much of the internal editing process.
- These days it is possible to use spaces in file names, but I recommend against it, because a web browser will fill in a space with the characters "%20", so that a file named Education Report April 2007.doc becomes Education%20Report%20April%202007.doc. That file name is a little hard to read and recognize. Therefore, when you name a web site file, you should omit spaces.
- Omit special characters indicated in RFC 3986, because these characters confuse web browsers. Omit these characters:
RFC 3986 section 2.2 Reserved Characters (January 2005) !*'();:@&=+$,/?#[] - It is very important to never use RFC 3986 characters in a file name. Take a look at the special characters that you should not use in a file name! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding
- Create a file name that indicates the document title. When you do so, you can easily deduce a document's full title from its file name. If you have ever tried to match in a web access report cryptic filenames with real document titles, then you will understand how important it is to give a document a "transparent" file name.
- To summarize, keep a file name simple and descriptive, add a publication date in the file name itself, and omit spaces and the pound or number character (#). Give each file a transparent file name that indicates the full title of the document contained within the file. These practices will help you and your web site visitors locate your documents.