Mass/Batch renaming of files in Office 2013

Powershell

Powershell is far more elegant but you can use Excel to do it too.

Put *copies* of all the files you want to rename in the same folder. Open a command window (cmd.exe) and cd your way to that folder.

Now type "dir * /b > files.txt"

Open the new file you just created called "files.txt" in notepad. It should be a bare listing of the files you put in that folder, and it will include files.txt itself. You don't care about that file, so copy and paste the entire list into Excel and remove files.txt from the list.

I'll assume that you pasted the list into column A in Excel. Type this into column B: =SUBSTITUTE(A1,"(","")

That will take whatever is in cell A1, and delete the ( in the new filename in column B. Adjust to your needs.

Then repeat this with any other characters you need to substitute in columns C, D, E, etc.

Finally you should have every file with a desired new name. I'll assume that is column L for no particular reason. In your final rightmost column enter this formula: ="ren "&A1&" "&L1. Drag and drop down the column.

Now select that final column, copy and paste into your command window. Voila!

This isn't a very elegant way to do it but it should work fine.

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Spock's Eyebrow

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The free version lets you define 5 rules per job and shows you a live preview on the files you've selected to rename. Multiple rules allow you to build up a complex rename operation in simple steps, and the steps include everything you could want from simple additions and deletions to substitutions to numbering to regex operations. It even includes Undo if you screw up, which you probably won't need thanks to the live preview.

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Downloaded it and it seems to be that they're renamed in the Rename/Preview window. But how do you drag and drop them back into the folders and is there some way that I can plop them back into the folders from whence they came?

Otherwise, I've created another job for myself...423 individual files that I have to hunt and peck through to put back into the old folders.

I'm asking this because when I go back into Win Explorer, the folders many of these individual folders were housed in still have the parentheses around them which aren't allowed for the SPS.

ETA: I had to play around with the programming and sorting a tad more to figure it out. I hadn't given it instructions to sort by file and path in the correct order in order for the folders to be changed based on my required rules as well.

This was EXTREMELY helpful for a free program and I am highly impressed.