Revised Question: I want to use file links in org that have spaces in the file names. The 'file://' hyperlink format does not allow spaces in the link. Is there a way to work around this?

Application: I have a directory with several thousand pdf files. All the file names have spaces. Using total Commander I can export a text file have full path information for all the files. I open this in org and use a renamer to add 'file://' to the front of the path information. If there are no spaces in the name, the file link is perfect and I can open the document directly from emacs. I can also add notes I the org file about what is in that document.

For example, I have a path listing like this that I open in an org file:

\Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf

I add the file link preface (using a renamer utility):

file://Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf

My org file looks something like this:

• Space Radiation ** Gamma Ray Info
  • file://Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf
  • some notes

However the title has spaces so the link stops at the first space. As I have literally thousands of collected papers and books that spaces in the name, adding %20 or even '+' to fill the space is a major task and also makes the linked document title difficult to read especially if you have several lines of such links.

Is there a way to work around this without having to change all the file names to convert or delete the spaces in the file name?

If so, org mode makes a great organizer for large collections of files like I have. It works really well, opening the file for reading.

(Note: I have looked at cliplink.el but I cannot see how I can apply that to a large number of files easily.)

My org file looks something like this:

* Space Radiation
** Gamma Ray Info 
   - file://Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf
   - some notes

However the title has spaces so the link stops at the first space. As I have literally thousands of collected papers and books that spaces in the name, adding %20 or even '+' to fill the space is a major task and also makes the linked document title difficult to read especially if you have several lines of such links.

Is there a way to work around this without having to change all the file names to convert or delete the spaces in the file name?

I have a directory of pdf files I want to create file links to from Emacs. I export a text file listing all the files with full paths and then add file:// to the beginning of each line to form the link.

The problem is that some of the file names have spaces between words. If I replace the spaces with %20, Emacs creates a proper file link. But that makes the file name hard to read in the link especially when I have a couple hundred lines of file paths with names.

If there are spaces, the link text is only as far as the first space which, of course, doesn't work.

Is there a way to have Emacs accept a space in the file name and still create a proper link?

Revised Question: I want to use file links in org that have spaces in the file names. The 'file://' hyperlink format does not allow spaces in the link. Is there a way to work around this?

Application: I have a directory with several thousand pdf files. All the file names have spaces. Using total Commander I can export a text file have full path information for all the files. I open this in org and use a renamer to add 'file://' to the front of the path information. If there are no spaces in the name, the file link is perfect and I can open the document directly from emacs. I can also add notes I the org file about what is in that document.

For example, I have a path listing like this that I open in an org file:

\Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf

I add the file link preface (using a renamer utility):

file://Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf

My org file looks something like this:

• Space Radiation ** Gamma Ray Info
  • file://Library\March 2015\Gamma Ray Radiation Fundamentals.pdf
  • some notes

However the title has spaces so the link stops at the first space. As I have literally thousands of collected papers and books that spaces in the name, adding %20 or even '+' to fill the space is a major task and also makes the linked document title difficult to read especially if you have several lines of such links.

Is there a way to work around this without having to change all the file names to convert or delete the spaces in the file name?

If so, org mode makes a great organizer for large collections of files like I have. It works really well, opening the file for reading.

(Note: I have looked at cliplink.el but I cannot see how I can apply that to a large number of files easily.)