Import old zotero bibliography from word (field codes still present) into library
Hi guys,
I previously uninstalled Zotero by mistake and lost ALL my library contents (inc data saved from fireox etc and due to my own stupidity in the way I uninstalled it, could not recover my old library back as I learnt from getting support here). However, I still do have my word document with all those citations in the document (codes still present). I thought I'd be able to carry on working on the same thesis document and add new items to my new library. This was all going without a problem until I had to re-cite something that is already in the original thesis document (with a citation from my old deleted library).
I thought I'd be able to add that item to my new library and was hoping that it'd be cited as the same number as the previous citation. Clearly I was burying my head in the sand regarding not getting my old library back because now the item is cited twice, and with two different citation numbers.
So, is there anything at all I can do to remedy this? I have about 300 citations in the document. Even if I manually added each citation into my new library, I figured I'm still going to have to proof-read the entire document to reinsert each and every citation. Or, I could just check the original citation number and just manually write the citation number at the end of the sentence? The problem with this is that I'd have to do this at the very end to make sure that all the citations are updated and in order etc.
I'm freaking out, because I have a feeling that there is no easy or painless way out of this. Can someone please help me? Thanks in advance.
Pat
I previously uninstalled Zotero by mistake and lost ALL my library contents (inc data saved from fireox etc and due to my own stupidity in the way I uninstalled it, could not recover my old library back as I learnt from getting support here). However, I still do have my word document with all those citations in the document (codes still present). I thought I'd be able to carry on working on the same thesis document and add new items to my new library. This was all going without a problem until I had to re-cite something that is already in the original thesis document (with a citation from my old deleted library).
I thought I'd be able to add that item to my new library and was hoping that it'd be cited as the same number as the previous citation. Clearly I was burying my head in the sand regarding not getting my old library back because now the item is cited twice, and with two different citation numbers.
So, is there anything at all I can do to remedy this? I have about 300 citations in the document. Even if I manually added each citation into my new library, I figured I'm still going to have to proof-read the entire document to reinsert each and every citation. Or, I could just check the original citation number and just manually write the citation number at the end of the sentence? The problem with this is that I'd have to do this at the very end to make sure that all the citations are updated and in order etc.
I'm freaking out, because I have a feeling that there is no easy or painless way out of this. Can someone please help me? Thanks in advance.
Pat
To check, find one of the old citations, then press alt+F9 - this will show the entire field code. It will either be pretty short - about 2 lines - or pretty massive, containing full citation information. If the latter, we can tell you how to work with that. If the former, you're out of luck & there is not going to be any painless way. If you're not sure you can paste the full field-code here and we'd be able to tell you.
Thanks for your reply. Yes, the field-codes are massive with full citation information. What do I do next?
Actually, I've figured the easiest thing to do is to just copy the citation number from the old document and paste it into the new one. Once I'm finished with the new document and want to paste it into the old one, the citations seem fine.
Pat
If you want to go this route, we can give you more detailed instructions, which you may need depending on whether you're using Zotero Standalone or Zotero for Firefox.
"Clicking on the “No group selected” button will open a list of group libraries to which the current user has access (the user’s own personal library is not included in the list, for the reasons outlined above)."
Since I don't have any group libraries and it doesn't show my personal library there is nowhere to export to?
Are there advantages to sticking with MLZ or do you recommend going back to Zotero original?
It's as adamsmith says. An advantage of official Zotero is support from the core developers: as MLZ is an unofficial fork of the main project, they can't provide direct support.
If you don't need to cite resources across languages, and don't cite many legal documents, you could go either way. By a recent rough count, there seem to be somewhere between 300 to 500 copies of MLZ running on the Web, spread across 60 countries or so. Small numbers, but the tool seems to be doing its job.
If you decide to go back to official Zotero, you can follow the instructions for Restoring from the last automatic backup, with the following adjustments:
(1) After syncing everything, install official Zotero. If you try to open it, it will fail with a complaint about a database mismatch. No worries: just close Firefox.
(2) Following the instructions, replace the zotero.sqlite file with the automatic backup copy. The backup file you want will be named "zotero.sqlite.77.bak" (you can safely ignore Step 4 of the instructions, since you are already fully synced).
(3) After your original library is back in place, you should be able to start Zotero, and syncing will bring down the items in the restoration group.
Thanks.
Do I have some thing wrong?
There is no any reference imported to the Collection.
After the action, "No group selected" was in red and no references were transferred to web collection.
I went online group settings, not sure how to get it linked with the word plug-in.
I used the newly created account to do it.
But I tried several times to transfer the references from word to online group library, it did not work.
Thanks much for sharing this method.
I'm in a similar position to the guy at the beginning: no back up of zotero references, but word documents with them on. I've been through the whole process recommended but am stuck at the final stage.
So far I have:
uninstalled zotero, deleted program files, installed juris m
opened juris m and synced with my online zotero account
created a group, into which I've uploaded the word file
Opened the word file from Juris M and pressed refresh, which takes me to the Juris M options. I've set the document to restore inaccessible references, the group appears in the dropdown menu in green. I click it, but nothing happens.
Any idea where I've gone wrong?
Thanks
p
I may be misinterpreting your description, but that's one possible source of the hitch.
I've been using it for the past month (on Windows+Word) to extract cites from student theses, and haven't had any problems, so it should work; but there might be glitches in other environments, so if it's still not working, just post back and we'll look more closely.
P.S. Feedback is more than welcome, and can be given either here or at the code repository at https://github.com/rmzelle/ref-extractor.
P.P. S. There are no privacy concerns: while it is a website, the extraction takes place entirely on your computer, and nobody has access to the Word documents you process with the tool.