Please help! I want to rename hundreds of files from my local directory by getting a string of text from the file. For example: Filename: 00401420.lcc I want to rename it to include the text from within the file. The file contains several lines of text 00401420*KT*SL*SUB1*RD1*0.200 00401420*SL*RT*SUB1*RD1*0.300 00401430*RT*FR*SUB1*RD1*0.500 The first column is the current name of the file. I want to get SUB and RD from the first line in column 4 and 5, and then rename it as the name of the file. The final filename should look like: RD1-SUB2.lcc Then proceed with the next file. The RD1 and SUB2 text is different in each file but in same location (column 4 and 5). example in the following file they are BUR1 and DE5 00501620*FR*SL*BUR1*DE5*0.500 00501620*SL*BG*BUR1*DE5*0.100 00501630*BG*FR*BUR1*DE5*0.600 The final filename for this one should look like: DE5-BUR1.lcc Any help on this would be much appreciated! Thanks WIK

How do you identify columns? Can it be assumed that column 1 is always 8 characters, column 4 always starts in character position 16 and column 5 always in position 21?

Thanks for your response. No the numbers of character change in column 2,3 & 6 in each row in each file. Column 1 is always 8 characters. The delimiter on the columns is always the * symbol. Columns 4 and 5 are the same text and characters for each row per file, but change for different files, hence only need to use the information from the first line or each file. Files can be two rows or 20 rows. These previous examples probably not so good here are some more. 00706410*SBT*STYI*DEIETNW*WENTYS*0.450 00706420*STY*ERTI*DEIETNW*WENTYS*10.890 00706430*ERTI*BTYUY*DEIETNW*WENTYS*7.589 00706440*BTYUY*APHTREE*DEIETNW*WENTYS*26.562 00000000*BTYUY*APHTREE*DEIETNW*WENTYS* Existing file name is 00706410.lcc Needs to be WENTYS-DEIETNW.lcc 00337910*HOSKET*45MB4IN*OSALEYER*MORTOD*0.220 00337920*45MB4IN*PASRH*OSALEYER*MORTOD*1.220 00337930*PASRH*'EN'*OSALEYER*MORTOD*23.22 00337940*'EN'*CULBIRNI*OSALEYER*MORTOD*0.350 00337950*CULBIRNI*'IE'*OSALEYER*MORTOD*1.260 00000000*CULBIRNI*'IE'*OSALEYER*MORTOD* Existing file name is 00337910.lcc Needs to be MORTOD-OSALEYER.lcc NOTE: The last line of the file is a copy of the prevoius with 00000000 in column 1 and nothing in column 6. The * symbols are still there. Does that make it more difficult? Hope someone can help me as have been trying for weeks to figure it out? Thanks again Wik

This should do it: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION pushd drive:\path\yourdir for /f "delims=" %%a in ('dir *.lcc /b/a-d') do ( set /p line=<"%%~fa" for /f "tokens=4,5 delims=*" %%b in ("!line!") do echo ren "%%~fa" "%%c-%%b.lcc" ) pause popd endlocal drive:\path\yourdir need to be the directory holding the files. I have prefixed the actual ren(ame) command with echo so you can check that it is what you before making any changes. When you are sure just remove echo and pause.

Thanks very much Judago. Genius! Works perfectly! A litle bit of tweaking to suit some changes to the files and will be perfect for a few other applications too. Thanks Very much appreciated Wik