google docs: export list of cited references (missing functionality)

fernan.aguero

Hello,

sometimes we prepare manuscripts in google docs (for easier collaboration with others that may not be familiar with LaTeX), but then need to switch to LaTeX for submission to a journal because for us it is definitely easier than e.g. using a MS Word .dotx template (we're talking about ACS journals here, chemistry).

The problem with google docs and the zotero connector is that then we need to export the list of cited references in the manuscript and from these prepare the corresponding .bib file for LaTeX. So far we have been unable to find how to do this.

Of course we can manually do it in Zotero, one by one. But is this a missing functionality?

In essence, Zotero allows a one way of moving references (from zotero to document). But there is no way to move back in the other direction (from document to zotero). It should be easy to move both ways as all cited references are linked, right?

Is there other way we could do this? Maybe there is a zotero plugin that would scan a docs file and create a library or collection from the found references?

Thanks in advance for any help.

adamsmith

https://rintze.zelle.me/ref-extractor/ does this in principle, but it only works with Word or LO documents -- you'd actually have to transfer the doc to one of those, just downloading in either format from GDocs won't work.

Some version of a document collection is planned natively in Zotero and I have seen some fairly advanced work on this, but as always no ETA

fernan.aguero

Thanks Adam, I will look up the ref-extractor, but anyway I can do that simply by copying and pasting the bibliography, open up in vim, and getting the DOIs or other unique identifiers by doing a couple of find/replace searches using regexes.

I was just trying to pick the interest of zotero developers to see if implementing this feature would be something others are also interested in.

thanks for chiming in! Best -- fernan

adamsmith

The ref extractor allows you to actually select the used references in Zotero, so it really is quite a bit better than manual solutions. It works by reading the Zotero metadata in the file (which isn't in the GDoc version).