Is there a program that can take a group of files and grab the file names and add them to a spreadsheet?

Question

I need to be able to grab a group of file names off of files and put them in Excel. Are there any programs that do such a thing?

My hand hurts from copying and pasting from each file. Thanks.

Answer 1

Find and install the Windows PowerToy called "Send To X".

PowerToys are add-on productivity tools that the Windows designers built for themselves and then made available to the public for (unsupported) download. Originally designed for Windows 95, many work on all versions of Windows, including this gem "Send To X".

When installed, the "Send To X" PowerToy adds 4 new commands to the Send To menu: Send To Any Folder, Send To Clipboard As Contents, Send To Clipboard As Name, and Send To Command Line.

Example of use: in Windows Explorer, select several files. Right-click any selected file, and choose Send To ... Clipboard As Name. Switch to Excel, and paste. The tool copies the entire path as well, but if you don't need that you can do a very simple Edit/Replace in Excel: just replace "*\" with "" (without quotes) and you'll be left with the filenames only.

The download file and instructions can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTSendToX.asp.

Aloha!

Answer 2

If all the files are in the same directory you could:
- Click on the Start Menu (windows XP)
- Select Run
- Type 'cmd' (without the quotes) and press enter
- Go to the directory where your files are (i.e. 'cd yourdirectory')
- type 'dir /B' (this will list all the file names)
- Right click at the beginning of the first file and select the 'Mark' option
- Select all the file names by holding the left button on the mouse
- Press Enter
- Open Excel and select Paste Special and select text
- This should paste all the file names onto a column

Answer 3

go to command line
(start/run/"cmd")

cd to the directory you are interested
for example "cd c:\fred"
then type "dir /b > c:\list.txt"
this will create a file named list.txt which contains the name of the files in the directory (/b so that it only prints the file names)
Then open that file in excel. You can cut the column and paste it in your main spreadsheet.