When you create a field in a SharePoint list it creates two things:
- An Internal name
- A display name, for use in views forms etc.
It is simple to change the display name, but the internal name can never be changed. Sometimes, when you create a column, if the column name contains certain characters, it will be encoded. For example, Paulie’s Test List would become Paulie_x0027_s_x0020_Test_x0020_List.
For this reason I always like to create my field names using camelCase such as pauliesTestList and then modify the display name afterwards. But if you’re working with SharePoint, you are going to come across field names like this on a regular basis.
For much more information on internal column names, check out this useful post written by Tom Riha.
SharePoint Column Name Converter
To make it super easy for you, simply type the name of your SharePoint column here and the correct escaped name will be generated for you in the box below.
List of SharePoint Character Mappings
Below is a complete list of characters that are escaped in SharePoint Column names. I hope you find it useful.
| Character | Description | Hex Code | Internal SharePoint Code |
| Space | 20 | _x0020_ | |
| ~ | Equivalency sign – tilde | 7E | _x007e_ |
| ! | Exclamation mark | ! | _x0021_ |
| @ | At symbol | 40 | _x0040_ |
| # | Number | 23 | _x0023_ |
| $ | Dollar | 24 | _x0024_ |
| % | Per cent sign | 25 | _x0025_ |
| ^ | Caret – circumflex | 5E | _x005E_ |
| & | Ampersand | 26 | _x0026_ |
| * | Asterisk | 2A | _x002a_ |
| ( | Open parenthesis (or open bracket) | 28 | _x0028_ |
| ) | Close parenthesis (or close bracket) | 29 | _x0029_ |
| + | Plus | 2B | _x002B_ |
| – | Minus or Hyphen | 2D | _x002D_ |
| = | Equals | 3D | _x003D_ |
| { | Opening brace | 7B | _x007B_ |
| } | Closing brace | 7D | _x007D_ |
| : | Colon | 3A | _x003A_ |
| “ | Double quotes (or speech marks) | 22 | _x0022_ |
| | | Vertical bar or Pipe | 7C | _x007C_ |
| ; | Semi Coloin | 3A | _x003A_ |
| ‘ | Single Quote | 27 | _x0027_ |
| \ | Backslash | 5C | _x005C_ |
| < | Less than (or open angled bracket) | 3C | _x003C_ |
| > | Greater than (or close angled bracket) | 3E | _x003E_ |
| ? | Question mark | 3F | _x003F_ |
| , | Comma | 2C | _x002C_ |
| . | Period, dot or full stop | 2E | _x002E_ |
| / | Slash or divide | 2F | _x002F_ |
| ` | Grave accent or back tick | 60 | _x0060_ |
Justin says
Also the internal name has a length limit, up to 32 characters.
Saša says
When creating a custom column with the name “Weiterberechnenan_x003a_” the output here is also “Weiterberechnenan_x003a_”, but the actual field name will be “Weiterberechnenan_x005F_x003a_”. x005F is representing a underscore. Perhaps you’ll need to update the encoder?
Gilles says
Hi Paul,
You forgot a rule in your SharePoint Column Name Converter.
There is also an encoding if you start the name by a digit.
e.g. 1st becomes : _x0031_st
Stefan Rauchegger says
There seems to be more rules in place (or in the following example … bugs?!)
While the converter above returns for “Fax1” an internal name “Fax1”, what SPO does in fact is _x0046_ax1 with x0046 the unicode for “F”
And as it looks this is somehow related to a short column name with trailing digits, because …
“ABC1” becomes “_x0041_BC1”
“ABC12” becomes “_x0041_BC12”
but “ABCD” remains “ABCD”
but also “EFG” remains “EFG”
but also “FaxNumber1” remains “FaxNumber1”
I would consider this a bug or at least a missing (hard to find) documentation in SPO!