Apple MA261Z/A User Manual - Page 50

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 Windows, Mac OS X and other Unix operating systems, and Mac OS 9. 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. Most special characters should be avoided. Here are some suggested conservative filenaming guidelines for maximum cross-platform compatibility: Avoid File separators Example characters : (colon) / (forward-slash) \ (backward-slash) Special characters not included ¢ ™ in your native alphabet Punctuation marks, parentheses quotation marks, brackets, and operators. White space characters such as spaces, tabs, new lines, and carriage returns (the last two are uncommon). Reasons 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. These characters may not be supported or difficult to work with when exported to certain file formats, such as EDL, OMF, or XML. These characters are often used in scripting and programming languages. 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 whitespace characters, and use the (underscore) _ character instead. 50 Part I An Introduction to Final Cut Express HD