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turtlebud

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2002
590
45
I work in a cross platform environment (windows/mac) where we typically save common files to a shared network drive. I've found when I save a file directly from excel (as opposed to saving it locally, then copying it over) it created an invisible ._filename file in the same directory. I know it's a property/resource file for the file that I just created, but it's a little confusing for some windows users and just clutters up the share directory. Is there any way to prevent the creation of the ._filename file while still saving directly from excel?

(I'd prefer not to save locally, then move to network drive - it's cleaner for me if I can just save directly)

So far, I've found that this only happens with MS Office. I've opened a sql file in textwrangler and komodo, edited it, and saved it to the network and no invisible files are created.

NOTE: this is different the the fix that apple had published regarding not creating DS_Store files - that refers to copying files from the finder to a network drive and I don't have any problems with that.

Thanks!
 
Here is some reading material as to what they are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork

Some windows os's see them as system files. Disabling "show hidden system files" on the windows machines is one option.

A quick google search turned up a app called "BlueHarvest". It looks to do what you want. I haven't personally tried it though. If you do use it or find some other way of doing it, do post a follow up. I'm curious.
http://zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest
 
Here is some reading material as to what they are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork

Some windows os's see them as system files. Disabling "show hidden system files" on the windows machines is one option.

A quick google search turned up a app called "BlueHarvest". It looks to do what you want. I haven't personally tried it though. If you do use it or find some other way of doing it, do post a follow up. I'm curious.
http://zeroonetwenty.com/blueharvest

Thanks for the suggestion - I came across Blueharvest as well, however, like many of the solutions, they seem to address the issue of copying files from your Mac to the share drive (which isn't a problem for me). I have yet to find any information about preventing a MS Office application from creating invisible files when saving directly to a share drive.

And I've changed my own settings on my windows prefs so that I don't see invisible files when I'm in windows, but I don't work closely (or sometimes not at all) with all the people that access the files that I put on the share drive, so I'd rather find a way to keep the share drive free of the .files.

If I do find a solution to this, I definitely will post here.

Thanks.
 
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