Space vs underscore - spaces are bad?

[Tall drink of water]

If you leave spaces in the name of a file in Excel as opposed to underscores, the spaces can cause problems.

For example: I_am_hot.xls instead of I am not.xls

Discuss.

[TwistedMentat]

Should this be in software?

I never like to leave spaces in anything in MSXL. Much easier to read when you compress and use prudent capitalization. If you leave spaces in sheet names, MSXL has to put single quotes around references to the sheet.

[Anonymous]

I thought this thread was to underscore our continued participation in space exploration...

[Pi Man]

spaces work. what's wrong with spaces? you guys actually TYPE the sheet names on a cell ref? doood you are SO old-fashioned! what's wrong with quotes, anyway?

[Dr T Non-Fan]

I think I'd need an example of spaces causing problems.
I don't do any fancy Windows VB, so I name a file in such a way that I know what the file is. Spaces help.
We have some servers here still restricting file names to 8 characters max. THAT's old school.

[Emily]

I use the DOS command prompt a lot. It's a pain to have to keep looking up the DOS name of files and directories. Although Windows 2000 is better about letting you use the Windows names in DOS.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

"DOS"? That IS old school!

[Pi Man]

I use the DOS command prompt a lot. It's a pain to have to keep looking up the DOS name of files and directories. Although Windows 2000 is better about letting you use the Windows names in DOS.
what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?

[Cho Da]

what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?YES! use unix!

rm -rf /*

[Double High C]

what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?YES! use unix!

How can you tell if they really are unix?

[Semprini]

what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?YES! use unix!

rm -rf /*


Isn't UNIX made by fat people? (http://www.achewood.com/12052001.html)

[SamChevre]

what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?
NO. Well, not in a Windows environment. GUI's have substantial limitations--if someone didn't write the code and assign a button, you can't do it. With command-lines, you have WAY more control. Same reasons APL is so much better than Excel or SAS and SQL is so much better than Access.

[Macroman]

I use the DOS command prompt a lot. It's a pain to have to keep looking up the DOS name of files and directories. Although Windows 2000 is better about letting you use the Windows names in DOS.
what's DOS?


why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?

DOS = disk operating system

This is from the old days when you generally had to put a disk in the computer to start it or run a program. Some of the windows features are still activated using old-fashioned DOS scripts, even in WIN-XP.

[Emily]

what's DOS?

why in the WORLD would you use it?? aren't there a thousand better ways to do what you are doing NOT using DOS?

No. A thousand times no. I don't know where to begin. If you know how to program batch files your computer will do what you tell it to do. If not, you are at its mercy.

[kazh]

space leaves more to the imagination

[oedipus rex]

Unless you're using VBA, putting spaces in Excel filenames dosn't sound like a problem, just do what Pi suggested and use quotes. It does cause a problem with named ranges, though. Open a new workbook, select a range of cells, Insert->Name->Define. Then try typing in a string with spaces in it.