Naming Conventions
The main rule to go by when naming your files is to use a naming convention that makes sense. Beyond that, here are some guidelines that we find useful:
- Include a three letter suffix even for Mac files that specifies
program that created file. Here are some common ones we deal with:
- .qxd - QuarkXPress
- .pmd - PageMaker 7
- .p65 - PageMaker 6.5
- .ind - InDesign
- .psd - PhotoShop
- .ai - Illustrator
- .ps - PostScript
- .pdf - Portable Document Format
- .tif - Tagged Image File Format
- .eps - Encapsulated PostScript
- .prn - Windows Printer File (same as .ps if printing with PostScript driver)
- .jpg - Joint Photo Expert Group Image File Format
- .txt - Plain text files (ASCII)
- .sit - Stuff-It Compressed File
- .sea - Stuff-It Self-Extracting Archive
- .zip - Zip Compressed File
- .cdr - CorelDraw
- .pub - MS Publisher
- .fh9 - Freehand 9
- Limit length of name (12 or so letters is enough in most cases)
- Include type of work (bro for brochure, mag for magazine, fly for flyer, etc...)
- Include something that identifies your company and/or the specific publication in a small amount of text...often the initials of the publication and/or company will work
- We prefer sequentially paginated files (one file paginated for the whole publication), but if this is not possible, include something to identify page range of each file
- Include links in the same folder as publication or in a folder named "links"
- Include fonts in the same folder as publication or in a folder named "fonts"
- When submitting bundling all the elements into one folder is helpful with above naming conventions, or compress the whole project into one compressed file with appropriate name
When sending in hard media (such as Zip, CDs, DVDs, etc), label media according to:
- Issue date
- Company name
- Agency name (if applicable)
- Contact person
- Phone number
- File name(s)/number(s)
- Return address
- List of contents