Renaming PDFs based on columns in Excel

Question

Hello!

I'm wondering if there is a way to have Alteryx rename pdf files based on certain columns in Excel. For example:

Excel: Column A: Name + Column B: Address + Column C: City

PDF file name: Formally was called 'Name', Now I want it as Name - Address - City

I would start with the input file & Directory -> formula tool (possibly Column A + " - " + Column B + " - " + Column C?) and the output is a command tool correct? I can't seem to remember how to do this.

Many thanks!

Luke_C · Answer

Hi @JamesJL

You can reference the solution to the below post as a starting point. It uses the run command tool similar to what @danilang outlined.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Rename-300-PDF-files-within-Directory/td-p/732163

danilang · Answer

Hi @JamesJL

Going Waaay back into the DOS days, what you're looking for is a batch file that can rename a series of files.  The syntax for this is

ren oldname.pdf newname.pdf

Once you have you new names defined possibly in field called [NewName], use a second formula tool to build up each ren line

'ren "'+[name]+'".pdf "'+[NewName]+'".pdf'

giving you

ren "Mary Smith.pdf" "Mary Smith - 123 Main St - SomeTown.pdf"

Concatenate all these line together using a Summarize and 
 as the delimiter.  Prefix this with a line to change to your working directory

cd "c:	emp\working directory"

Giving you a final DOS batch file that looks like this

cd "c:	emp\working directory"
ren "Mary Smith.pdf" "Mary Smith - 123 Main St - SomeTown.pdf"
ren "John Jones.pdf" "John Jones - 123 Main St - SomeOtherTown.pdf"

Pass this file to the command tool and you're renames will be done.

Of course the methods mentioned by @BS_THE_ANALYST and @alexnajm will both work as well.  The one problem with the Blob tool approach is that it doesn't actually rename the file, but creates a copy leaving the only one behind.  This may be or may not acceptable.

Dan

BS_THE_ANALYST · Answer

I haven't used Blob input and output tools so I'll definitely look into them; thanks for the suggestion @alexnajm!

If the Blob tools don't get the job done, I'd use ChatbotGpt and write out what you want executed in a Python script format. It should be able to put that together. Then just drag Python tool on the canvas and insert the script into the Jupyter Notebook.