Manual (Part 2 – Filecats Standard and Filecats Professional)
Closing steps of cataloging
Once the files have been catalogued, or the “Cancel” button has been pressed, then the spreadsheet is formatted, so that the columns are appropriately sized, dates are formatted as such, and rows are appropriated sized (unless you are cataloguing “Body” metadata).
Speed of formatting is dependent on the number of rows catalogued and the amount of metadata catalogued.
Once the cataloguing has been completed, then Filecats will ask you to save the catalogue.
In the Taskbar in Windows 7 and 8, you may see the Excel icon glow orange.
If you switch to Excel, you will see a dialog box appear asking you to save it.
You can either save it or press “Cancel”. If you are using Excel 2007 or later, you can change the “Save as type” to “Excel Binary Workbook (*.xlsb)” – this will reduce the size of the spreadsheet.
Once you have done either, Filecats has finished, and it ends. You now have the catalogue in Excel format for you to use as you wish.
Spreadsheet columns
The Catalogue spreadsheet produced by both Filecats Standard and Filecats Professional starts with these columns:
- ID
- Folder or File Name
- Open (hyperlink)
- File Type
- Attributes
- Folder and File Name.
In more detail, the columns exported are as follows:
- ID. This is a sequential number for each file and folder. It is not intrinsic to the file. Therefore, if you do a second catalogue and the number of files and folders have changed compared the first catalogue, then the number for a particular file may change.
- Folder or File Name. This is the file name or the folder name for a particular file.
The root folder, as shown in row 5 above, is shown as a single slash.
The name is indented according to a file or folder’s depth, i.e. a file within the root folder will be indented slightly, where as a file within a folder within a folder will be indented more.
Some of the following columns are not available if the combination of the path and file name is greater than 255 characters. This is because of limitations of Windows and Microsoft Excel.
- Open. This is a hyperlink to the file or folder. If a folder, it will open it in Windows Explorer. If a file, it will open the file if possible using the software on your machine.
If Windows does not believe you have suitable software to open the file, then you will be unable to open the file from Excel.
- Depending on the type of file, you may receive a Microsoft Excel Security Notice. This is normal. See the article Exploring the Hyperlink Security Notice for more detail.As stated in the Security Notice, file may contain viruses and other things which may be harmful to your computer and data. This is the same if you open the file within Windows Explorer, but you may not get this warning in Windows Explorer.This feature is discussed further in the Hyperlinks section below.
- File Type. This is the extension of the file. Using this information, you can filter on all Excel documents by filtering on files containing “.xls”, which will include “.xlsx” and “.xlsb”.
The description of the File Type can be generated in Filecats Professional in the Standard Metadata section.
- Attributes. These are attributes of the file, including:
- A – Archive,
- D – Directory (Folder),
- H – Hidden, and
- R – Read-only
- S – System.
See this article about file attributes for more information.
- Folder and File Name. This is the original folder and file name catalogued. For example, if a file “A.docx” is contained in “C:MyFolderFolder2”, then this column will contain “C:MyFolderFolder2A.docx”
- Path from Root. This contains the folder name only, and excludes the catalogued folder. For example, if you have catalogued the folder “C:MyFolder”, then for the above file this column will contain “Folder2”, i.e. it does not include “C:MyFolder” and it does not include “A.docx”.
- Size. This is the size for files shown in bytes. This column is blank for folders.
- Indent. For nested folders, this shows the number of folders a particular folder is nested from the root. For example, if you have catalogued the folder “C:MyFolder”, then “C:MyFolderFolder2” is 1 folder away from the root folder, and therefore this column will contain the number 1.
For files, this shows the indent of the folder plus 1. Therefore, as the folder “C:MyFolderFolder2” is 1 indent away from “C:MyFolder”, then “C:MyFolderFolder2A.docx” is 2 indents away.
- Created. This is the date and time that the file or folder was created, according to Windows Explorer. Bear in mind that this may not be reliable as the most appropriate creation date/time. For example, it may be the date/time that it was created on an individual computer, as opposed to when it was originally created.
Alternatively, it may not be the relevant date for the file. For example, if you copy an email from Microsoft Outlook to Microsoft Windows, this date/time of the file is when the copying was done, instead of when the email was sent/received.
A more reliable date may be contained in the metadata, which may be obtainable with Filecats Professional. This is detailed in an article about Windows Explore dates.
- Last Written. This is the date and time that the file or folder was last written, according to Windows Explorer. More reliable date/time may be available in the Filecats Professional metadata.
- Last Accessed. This is the date and time that the file or folder was last accessed, according to Windows Explorer. More reliable date/time may be available in the Filecats Professional metadata.
- Folder. This is a hyperlink to Windows Explorer, and will open the relevant folder.
Additional metadata columns are available in Filecats Professional.
