problem with filenames in creating action in CS4 (no problem in CS3)

[smcara]

Hi there
I have access to CS3 on one computer, and CS4 on another.
I'm adapting several big maths textbooks for vision-impaired students in Large Print format, and need to adapt many of the images. I'm not terribly proficient in the Adobe suite... having no formal training & only learning on the job over the past year.

I am working with hundreds of .eps files (supplied by the original publishers) that I open in Illustrator and want to convert them from .eps to .png (or in some cases, .jpg) because some of them need adapting.

In CS3 (the version I most often use) I had no problem setting up an Action to automate this conversion.
However, in CS4 I ran into a problem.
The source files from the publishers are named like this: A1.00.eps, A1.01.eps, A1.02.eps, A2.00.eps, A2.01.eps etc etc.
The numbers refer to the figures in the print copy.
But CS4 doesn't recognise the text after the first dot - presumably it "assumes" that the following text must be part of the file extension (this problem doesn't happen in CS3).
Thus the program only saves the files as A1 and A2 (etc) and doesn't recognise the .02 etc part.
How can I fix this and still create an Action?
One way might be to remove the first dot in each filename before setting up the action (perhaps as a batch rename in Bridge - but don't know how to set up a rename where I only want one dot removed).
I need to be able to do this on both CS3 and CS4, because I'm supposed to be teaching someone else how to do this, and they'll be using the computer with CS4.
Thanks in anticipation!

[Albacore]

Are the files been sync. with Bridge? I like your self only use CS3 but I think if you use Bridge it should be accepted in CS4 and then you can run your action. They also should open if they are mainly bitmaps in PS as well.

[smcara]

Hi Albacore
I'm not sure what you mean by "Are the files been sync. with Bridge?"?
I'm very new to Bridge, but it does seem odd that the CS4 version of Brdige doesn't seem to allow for dots in the filename when it's working fine in CS3.

I've since found out from a geek friend that there are some programs that you can run to batch-change filenames in more intelligent ways than Bridge seems to allow (to my limited knowledge of it), so that could be a work-around solution. I've also alerted Adobe to my problem.
cheers

[smcara]

Further to that - Adobe has responded to my query but only to suggest batch re-naming. They didn't say how to get rid of the dots in the filename and keep the rest of the numbers in the filename intact (e.g. change 14.02.eps to 1402.eps).

[Albacore]

I have never been impressed by Adobe's email responses but have always liked the telephone Help Line. Since its an EPS file how would PS deal with the file? Could you not run your actions through PhotoShop?

[smcara]

Yes, I have created some actions in Photoshop & some in Illustrator.
In PS, if you open an EPS it asks if you want to rasterize the image. At that point you can resize it. To make the resulting png or jpg a higher resolution, one re-sizes the image. I presume that this manual intervention means you can't automate the conversion process into an Action?

btw, for now I can work around the filename problem by using CS3. I have told Adobe that it's a nuisance that CS4 doesn't allow for dots inside filenames...