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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(316.8, 83%, 40%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EEK%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Honestly I'm going into powershell pretty cold with a very basic knowledge. I've been searching but I'm having trouble finding out how to do specific elements of what I'm looking to do, namely grab a filename, put it into a variable and use that variable several times before the script ends.
I want to read the filename of MainImage.jpg and store it into a variable.
Then copy it to z:\WEB1
then copy-tem \path\image2.jpg to z:WEB2
then rename image2 in z:\WEB2 to the filename stored in the variable.
and so on 2 more times, image3 to WEB3, rename from variable, image 4 to WEB4, rename from variable
Any help to get me unstuck? Brain is a bit melted and having trouble figuring it out on my own.
Thanks.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(256, 74%, 34%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3ERM%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Download and read this PDF: Windows-PowerShell-4. The download is free. Work through the 1st half of the book. Do the exercises; don't skip them. When you're comfortable with the basics, you can move to the 2nd half of the book and read how to accomplish common administrative tasks using what you've learned in the 1st half.
Is this what you mean?
$n = Read-Host "Enter file name (MainImage.jpg)"
Copy-Item -Path .\$n -Destination z:\WEB1 # <=== ASSUMES the current directory (".") in the Path value. Change it to whatever is correct!
Copy-Item -Path \path\image2.jpg -Destination "z:\WEB2\$n"
Copy-Item -Path \path\image3.jpg -Destination "z:\WEB3\$n"
Copy-Item -Path \path\image4.jpg -Destination "z:\WEB4\$n"
The "\path\" part used in the Copy-Item doesn't look correct for a UNC name, and it should have either a "." or a "X:" if it's a file system path (where "X" is, of course, whatever drive letter is appropriate)
It's sorta what I mean. I don't need it asking for a prompt for the filename, but it's a good jumping off spot to flesh it out to grabbing the filename from the main image itself. I had to change all the "to" in the last 3 copy-Items to get it to work, it wanted -Destination instead, then it worked, but it just created files called "$n" instead of the variable file name. The folders I'm using have spaces in them too, so I had to escape them, and that might be interfering with the $n, I'm not sure.
Thank you very much for this though, it's got me starting on trying to figure it out.
I corrected the code sample. I used "-Destination" on the 1st "Copy-Item" but I have no idea why I used "to" on the last three!
If you changed the double-quotes to single-quotes you stopped the variable interpolation. IOW you get a literal "$n" instead of the value of the variable $n.
If you're intent on extracting text from a jpg file you can try using Microsoft's OCR: powershell-extract-text-from-image-and-convert-print-in-any-language, or an open-source project that uses Google's OCR: psimaging-part-2-export-text-from-images
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(41.6, 84%, 14%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EMT%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
May i suggest, that you try to copy-paste your code in here, that way it will be a lot easier to get an overview of the issues that you still experience.
If you don't declare the $n variable, then it will give issues, but i'm not sure if that is what you mean or not. It should not be a problem with spaces in the folders, you can work around those, and even if, you would still be able to declare the variable using a + sign between your variable and other text.
But again, if you could provide the code that are not working as expected and a description og what you wish it to do, then there is a good change that you can get help :)
I went back at it less tired and I got it working as this. Thanks so much for your help.
$n = Read-Host "T1_MainImage.jpg"
Copy-Item -Path .\$n -Destination 'X:\Drive\WEB 1'
Copy-Item -Path .\image2.jpg -Destination "X:\Drive\WEB 2\$n"
Copy-Item -Path .\image2.jpg -Destination "X:\Drive\WEB 2\$n"
Copy-Item -Path .\image3.jpg -Destination "X:\Drive\WEB 3\$n"
Copy-Item -Path .\image4.jpg -Destination "X:\Drive\WEB 4\$n"
What I meant by grabbing text was, my ultimate goal is for it to automatically grab the filename of whatever file begins with T1_ (there will only be one) and then use that as the name variable.
Replace line #1 with this:
$n = (Get-Childitem T1_* -File).Name
NOTE: If there is more than one file in the current directory that matches the wildcard it won't work correctly!
It works perfectly. Thanks so much for helping me out on this.