I have tried a few of these utilities but had stability issues or did not really care for the gui. I need a batch renamer capable of adding or renaming characters from files and folders. Any suggestions?

What have you tried? I assume you didn't like Krename, did you try Metamorphose1 or Metamorphose2, iirc I prefered the 1 version.

Some others I found: GPRename, pyrenamer, Thunar Bulk Rename

There is also a nice batch renamer inside GNOME Commaner (select some files and press Shift+F6). It seems to have enough features, too. For me, KRename is even more than enough, but maybe in your case GNOME Commaner has some advantages.

I need a batch renamer capable of adding or renaming characters from files and folders.

Wait... do you mean you need to use some characters from the text inside a file?

@Google, I honestly do not recall which ones I tried but atm I have KRename and GPRename installed. KRename was a bit confusing at first because the tabs are labeled as if you need to progress in some order, when really you only need to use tabs 1 and 4 at minimum. Being a KDE/Qt native app it utilizes Konquer for file management from the looks of it. This is a plus. GPRename is GNOME/GTK based so file management can be a bit of a pain if you need to dig deep down in to a locations, but the UI is more straight forward imo. Thanks for the numerous suggestions. I will dig in to them and report back for others that would like to read reviews on the products.

@greatperson, lol no I don't need to use some characters from the text inside a file. Sorry I guess my proof reading was a bit off. What I meant to say was "I need a batch renamer capable of adding or *removing* characters from file and folder *names.*"