Need to attach file with illegal character - using shortcuts as workaround?

Question

Let me preface this by saying that I don't know too much about SharePoint right now.

I need to attach files to various list items. Each file that needs attaching is in a different folder and they all contain the "&" character. To save space since this will eventually be a rather large collection of files the initial plan was to make a shortcut to this document and upload the shortcut. The idea was that the user would open the attached shortcut and be instantly re-directed to the file.

This is even more necessary now that we have realized that all of our filenames are illegal to upload. I was hoping that if I simply renamed the shortcut to "Shortcut" instead of a copy of the filename-shortut it would work, however sharepoint seems to instantly replace the shortcut file with the file it links to (?).

Is there a way to stop it replacing the shortcut and instead actually upload the shortcut.lnk file? I'm really hoping its just an option I can change.

Is there perhaps another shortcut-style of file that SharePoint does not replace instantly with the final destination file?

Renaming the files themselves is not an option as there are a lot of interlinking excel files that would probably break if the filenames all changed....

Answer 1

Attachments are actually files uploaded into SharePoint, and would then be a separate file from the one in your folder.

It sounds like the intent is to have the files stay where they are, they just need to be linked (shortcut) with the list item. If that is what you are trying to do, you could add a hyperlink column to your list and use that to link to the file in your folder location. That would mimic the shortcut you mention.

Go to list settings > add column, and add a column of type "hyperlink or picture".