Why are pdf's named so?

[Crothian]

I get more then a few PDFs and it seems they are all oddly named. The names are always like kp7001 or MYG-GA. Those are two actually zip file names and the later is even the name of the pdf. Is there a reason for naming them like this? It just seems instead of calling something dqg1402, one might just call it Familiars since it is Dweolmercraft Familiars by Dark Quest Games.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I've always assumed that those were catalog numbers or something like that.

Best,
Nick

 

[Flyspeck23]

Blame it on RPG Now

They want the ZIP files named like that - company abbrevation and product number. For instance: the Complete Spell Cards are named togc001.zip. Individual PDF names are a different matter. I'd guess that some companies just keep the same format, although they don't have to (continuing my example: the PDFs are named 00main.pdf, 02bard.pdf, ...).

Personally, I'd like to keep the names short. And most people will rename their PDFs anyway (my preference is "[Product's name] - [Company's name] - [System].pdf").

 

[Psionicist]

It's good practice to use the 8.3 format for naming convention, particularly when you don't know who will use your file. This is probably why they don't name the file Dweolmercraft Familiars by Dark Quest Games.pdf, or familiars.pdf (familiars is longer than 8 letters).

 

[astralpwka]

Crothian -

The file name is that way for RPGNow, as Flyspeck pointed out. And that also confirms you received one of our books for review . When you unzip the kp7001, I believe I have it named closer to the book's actual title.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Crothian,

The filenames are the result of catalog numbers. For instance, Big Bang Volume 1 is ATN1001. ATN is my company's RCHTA code, as assigned by MSM, and the 1001 is an internally assigned product number. The two combine to create an easy product code that is traditionally used by retailers for placing orders. Unfortunately, A lot of companies don't have an RCHTA code, so they make up their own. But then again, the code is only really necessary if the publisher plans on doing physical products.

RPGnow has asked that files be named by these product codes, in order to speed up the process of getting them up for sale on their site.

 

[tensen]

I get more then a few PDFs and it seems they are all oddly named. The names are always like kp7001 or MYG-GA. Those are two actually zip file names and the later is even the name of the pdf. Is there a reason for naming them like this? It just seems instead of calling something dqg1402, one might just call it Familiars since it is Dweolmercraft Familiars by Dark Quest Games.

DQG is Dark Quest Games' Games Quarterly Publisher code.
14xx is the Dweomercraft Series of our products
And it is the second product in that particular product line.

The code would be the same that a retailer would utilize to order the product from us.

 

[Crothian]

Thanks all, I knew there had to be a reason I just had no idea what it was.

 

[Axegrrl]

There's no real reason to be restricted to 8.3 anymore. That's an artifact from MS-DOS days, and there really isn't an easy way to get a useful PDF reader on a system that is limited to 8.3 filenames.

PDF is an acronym for "portable document format".

 

[rpghost]

Still, it's a real pain to deal with filenames that have spaces in them and being long and case senstive doesn't help matters. A simple typo can make a product download bad. Etc. It's just a lot easier and less error prone if we eZnforce some standards on filenames. Plus it helps us identify the upload since we personally don't know what product title belongs to what new publishers who decides to upload it. We see tons of files and if we have to go search for who's file is who's and all the other crap it would be a big waste of our time. After all, the only reason we can keep prices low is to keep as much automation as possilbe.

So, we recomend a publisher releases a zip file with a subdirectory and filename that is meaningfull to the end customers. It won't be long before RPGNow ONLY delivers zip files as the pdf's are taking up gigs of space and the hard drives are filling up for no good reason since most everyone downloads the zip anyway.

James