01. The naming pattern of these files is 100% reliable so a script can know in which position with which delimiter it'll find the necessary data?
Yes, I intend to have the naming pattern for
this particular set of files kept 100% reliable in terms of formatting but it sounds now to me that even if you are able to script this, it would be specific for those set of files that have the file name format that specific way? I have several other documents in different directories where the file name formatting differs but parts of the file name are also placed into custom columns where, at the moment, I sum them up with my scripted user button and so was hoping to achieve something universal in nature like the summing user button that works on any column and in any directory.
02. Are these kind of files only in a specific part of your folder hierarchy or can this "composition of files" be found anywhere?
Yes, they are in a specific part of the folder hierarchy and organized by folder and kept consistent. In the example provided, those .PDF files are in a 2024 folder. If you back up one level, you'll get a list of folders dated by year going back to 2009 with the same type .PDF's inside.
03. Is there a way to know (e.g. because they have a special name) if one of your folders does contain such a composition?
Yes, I believe by path location.
04. Are they always .pdf files?
Yes, the files to be summed will almost always be .pdf's but there may be cases that its some other format.
05. Are there any other file types in those directories apart from the ones that are necessary for the summing up?
Yes, there are other file types, as well as some other pdf's in those directories, however, they should not be summed and they have different file name formatting that is more conventional.
Just a thought here..
The summing script that I have on a user button, which you created for me a while back, works really well in any directory and with all columns, and it gives me options to select which columns to sum. I use this button daily to sum things then I manually jot things down from the popup, either onto paper, into my accounting program, sometimes into the comment column, and so on. Is it easier, or possible that when I do use this button to sum up things, that I could have an option from the pop to save that information into a text file where that data would then be extracted into the columns. I saw somewhere on the forum that someone was able to get recipe data(calories) in the content of a text file extracted into a custom columns. Perhaps this can be done that way too where the summed info is in the file content formatted a certain way to be extracted into custom columns, then the file name convention is irrelevant. I don't really care about the file name if the content of the file can be put into these custom columns accordingly.