TechNote (Archived)

The FreeHand 10 extension and file naming issues

General information about file extensions
The correct file extension for FreeHand 10 files is .fh10, which follows the pattern of the FreeHand file extension since version 4.

Previous Windows operating systems required that file names conform to an "8.3" naming convention. This convention dictated that a file name have only eight characters for the file name and three characters for the extension.

The three-character limit on file name extensions became obsolete with the introduction of Windows Long File Names (LFN) in Windows NT and Windows 2000. With LFN, file extensions do not have a character limit. The only limitation for the file name is the length of the file's path, which cannot have more than 255 characters (including drive letter and punctuation). Note that many extensions used by Windows in a default installation (before any applications are installed) are four to six characters long.

Issue:file extensions on networks
Despite the advent of LFN, some networks still truncate file names to conform with the 8.3 naming convention. This network-imposed change in a file name could break a link to an imported file in a FreeHand 10 document. For example, if a FreeHand document has a linked file with the name mydogspot.tif, the file name will be changed to mydogs~1.tif when the file is transferred over a network. This file-name change will break the link to the file. If the file is embedded (rather than linked), the file name will not change.

Solutions
If you wish to avoid a network truncating the file names of linked files, you have two options: 1) changing the names of linked files or 2) embedding files in the FreeHand document. The steps for either are below:

	Changing the names of linked image files Before copying the file to the server, change the name of any linked file to conform to the 8.3 naming convention (and make certain FreeHand recognizes the change). 1 Close the document which contains the linked images. 2 Change the file names outside of FreeHand. 3 Reopen the document within FreeHand. A dialog box will appear asking you to locate the missing linked files. Navigate to the folder which contains the renamed images, and select the renamed file that matches the file requested at the top of the Locate File dialog box. Note:If you choose"Ignore" or "Ignore all," the file will open with any missing linked images appearing as X-boxes. Note:In this case, enabling "Search the current folder for missing links" won't help to reestablish the link, since the file names have been changed. 4 Continue navigating to the renamed images until all have been replaced. 5 Save the document. Note:If desired, choose Save As and give the file another name.
	Embedding the image files Embed the image files in the FreeHand document before moving it to the server. 1 Select one of the images in the document. Choose Edit > Links. This opens the Links panel which displays a list of the linked images. 2 Select each image in the list and click Embed. This will make the imported images part of the FreeHand file, and they won't have to be copied to the server. Note:The images can be extracted on the destination computer to avoid leaving them embedded permanently. For instructions on extracting images, please see How can a bitmap which is embedded be linked instead? (TechNote 15785).

Additional information
For more information about problems relating to linked files, see Cross Platform Issues Involving Linked Files (TechNote 12251).

Macintosh users may find it helpful to know that the "Creator" code for a native Macintosh FreeHand 10 file is FH X (there is a space between the FH and the X) and the "Type" code is AGD5.