by FrequentlyPuzzled » Wed Aug 03, 2016 6:39 pm
Hasse: Many thanks for such a swift response. Let me attempt to make my initial post clearer. Each file in a given folder has the same name followed by a date and none of which – name or date - are within parentheses. For example, in one folder, all files might be named Mobile Production 01.03.2015.pdf, Mobile Production 02.05.2015.pdf, throughout a year and continuing with the same name and date format for multiple years. My job is to get them so they will order themselves by date, such as 2015.01.03, 2015.02.02, etc.. As they now exist, multiple years can be intermixed when reviewing the folder, since they order on the first numbers ( the month in the current format) rather than the years followed by the month. Thus it is difficult to find a specific file, or to check if a file is missing for a given year. Ideally, of course, would be to both change the date and put it first, for example, from Mobile Production 01.03.2015.pdf to 2015.01.03 Mobile Production.pdf, but I am extremely happy at the moment just with the date format change as I believe you provided.
However, I was not successful and I assume it was some error on my part. As I understood your instructions, starting from the BRU screen, under RegEx (1), I did a copy and paste of the expression you provided for Match, and entered it where indicated. I did the same for the Replace expression. I made no other changes. I then opened a test folder and selected a few of the appropriate files to change, but the Rename button remained grayed out. I tested, and was able to make other changes, such as capitalization. However no RegEx worked and the button was grayed. I did note that in your Match expression there are 4 open parens, but only 3 closed. I did not know where or if it was necessary to match. While I tried several locations, the Rename button always remained grayed out.