This guide will be assisting how you can rename multiple PDF files at once or with ease and minimum efforts?
We will be using Microsoft Excel to rename PDF files in bulk. You can follow this tutorial for Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows 7.
What Are Downsides Of Bulk Renaming?
It is not possible to give a unique name to each file. You can only rename multiple files serial wise at once.
The following method will rename multiple files with ABC or 123 at once. You can use words but you will have to add a number or alphabet letter at the end of the word.
In addition, you cannot rename PDF files with multiple charactoters.
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What Do I Need To Have For Batch Rename PDF Files In One Go?
This guide requires Microsoft Excel and command prompt without administrator privileges.
It doesn’t matter which version of Microsoft Office you use, all versions work. We recommend any Microsoft Office version released after 2013.
If PDF files are scattered across your hard disk in different folders, We suggest choosing PDF files you want to rename and put them into one folder to save the time and make it easy.
On a device with average system resources, We suggest limiting the number of PDF files for the renaming process to hundreds, not thousands in one go. Your device may hang or crash.
You can go beyond this limit If your machine has a good amount of RAM, powerful processor and graphics card.
Watch Video Guide
(Part One) How To Use Command Prompt To Get The List Of PDF Files?
Here are some PDF files in this folder we have included for demonstration purposes.
First of all, we need the list of files along with file extension. Go to the start menu search for command prompt by typing CMD.
Open the command prompt from the search results.
Open the folder we have put PDF files in. Copy the folder location from the address bar and get back to the command prompt.
In the command prompt, Type cd and then paste the copied location by pressing control and V keys together and hit Enter.
To export the list, Type this dir /d => list.txt command and hit Enter.
Get back to the folder containing PDF files. There will be a text file named list. Open it up and skip other details and only copy the list of PDF files.
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How To Use Microsoft Excel To Add Rename Command To Each PDF File?
After copying the list, Open Microsoft Excel.
We need to pay a little more attention to the next part. This is a sample Excel file with five columns Old Name, Ext. New Name, Ren Command and Rename Command. The following names are examples, not mandatory. You can give any names.
Paste copied list in Old Name column.
Type .PDF in Ext. column. Drag the cell to the end of the list.
Type the new name in the next column. For example, type simple hyphen 1. Drag the cell to the end of the list. This will automatically add the next number or character next to Simple.
In the command column, Type ren and drag the cell to the end to automatically ren in all cells.
In the first cell of the Rename Command column, copy and paste following command and hit Enter.
=D2&” “””&A2&””” “&C2&B2&””””
Drag the cell to the end. Copy the last column.
(Part Two) How To Use Command Prompt To Get The List Of PDF Files?
Get back to the command prompt and paste the copied column into the command prompt and hit Enter.
Congratulations! The renaming of multiple PDF files has been successful.
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Final Words
We hope this bulk renaming PDF file guide has been informative, useful and easy to follow to you. Hopefully, you have to manage to rename your PDF collection at once.
Feel free to contact us for help or clarification, if we could not explain any points properly. We will try our best to assist you.
Use the comment section for questions, suggestions and feedback.
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