Hi all I worked out this rusty batch to rename a bunch of files resident in a specific directory called “orginali” in order keep just the part of the filename after the blank space (which happened to be of my interest). ::>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> @echo off dir /b originali\*.txt > originali\file_list.tmp pushd originali\ for /f "tokens=1* delims= " %%a in (file_list.tmp) do ren "%%a %%b" %%b >nul del *.tmp popd ::>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Files in question are typically on the form: XXXXX[blank space]zzzzzzz.txt Now I need to generalise the batch because I would like to be able to rename the files with a given number (at choice) of characters of its proper filename before the file extension (independently of the type of delimters); keeping up on the above mentioned example I want to use, let’s say, the last 3 characters of the filename so that the final product (the new filename) would be like: zzz.txt Any suggestion? Second question, much more tricky (!?): is it possible to store the above mentioned string filename (zzz) in a variable and then add it to each row of a new column of the same file content? Example of the original file content called XXXXX[blank space]zzzzzzz.txt A B C D a1 b1 c1 d1 a2 b2 c2 d2 a3 b3 c3 d3 ….. Example of the output file content called zzz.txt NEW A B C D zzz a1 b1 c1 d1 zzz a2 b2 c2 d2 zzz a3 b3 c3 d3 ….. Thank you for your help max

As to the first bit; you can nevermind making a tmp file. Just use DIR in FOR. No need to popd. ::================================= @echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion pushd src for /f "tokens=1* delims= " %%a in ('dir/b/a-d') do ( ren "%%a %%b" %%b ) ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

m2 you are perfectly right, the core of the problem was sorted! by the way I'm just wondering if I can conveniently make a slight variation to your code as to include a specific dir (I already made something with pushd...) now I'm testing: Set Folder=originali for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in ('dir "%Folder%\*.txt" /b/a-d') do ( .... but it seems not working so there must be still something I'm missing... bye m

m2 sorry this should have been intended as a follow up to my other post (your reply #3): http://www.computing.net/answers/pr... I definitely mismatched the post but in the end it seems quite consistent also in this one! thanks again max