Translations:Naamgeving van mappen en bestanden/24/en

• Spaces: operating systems, programs and scripts can struggle with files that have spaces in their folder or file names. It’s better to use an underscore (_) instead of a space. Spaces signal the end of a string to the operating system, which can prevent the full file name from being recognised.
• Special characters: punctuation and special characters (such as \ / : * ? “ < > | [ ] & $ , .) should also be avoided. These characters often have special functions within systems and can lead to unwanted effects. For instance, the backslash (\) is used to identify folders in Windows, while macOS and Linux use the forward slash (/). Dots are used to indicate a file’s extension; using them in a file name can cause errors.
• Diacritical marks: the English language doesn’t use diacritical marks, and since computer development mainly occurred in the English-speaking world, many computer systems aren’t equipped to handle them. Even though you can now use these marks in file names, many programs still don’t support them. Errors can also occur when files are moved from one system to another. Want to know more? Read this article on character encoding (in Dutch).