Importing text citations (problems with ODF/RTF import and the like)

hubbardd

I have 200+ references document with multiple citations in the format of:
{author, year}

I was hoping that there was some small chance that anyone could help me find a way to scan in citations and turn them into a Zotero document with field codes.

I have tried the .rtf scan with the rtf generated by microsoft word... no luck. I tried pasting to a text file then opening in libreoffice and saving as an .rtf... still no luck. I also tried saving as an .odt and installing the odf/rtf scanner function, but that grabbed nothing (I realize that all the citations are in the wrong format of {author, year} not the {with 3 bars} format suggested by Bennet and Karchner here:

http://zotero-odf-scan.github.io/zotero-odf-scan/

But for me to convert to that format I would have to manually input every citation from Zotero again, which would defeat the purpose of trying to do a scan and import all the citations. I can manually replace each citation one by one with Zotero in a word document, but if there is any possible way around it, I would really appreciate it.)

I've been searching the forums for hours trying to find a solution to this. Suggestions on how to get the .rtf scanner or the odf scanner to work are what I'm most hoping to find (so far the best I've been able to get is 5 imported references out of the 200+), but any suggestions are appreciated.

Operating: Window 8.1, Zotero 4.0.26.4, Libreoffice 4.4.3.2 all current on plugins as of today.

Sorry this is a long post already, but just so you're aware of the source of the code... I orginally was trying to convert a lateX file into a word document with Zotero references. I already have all the references that are in the LateX document in my Zotero library since I was using Zotero originally to export to Bibtex and then create my LateX file with the bibliography. Whew! Thanks for listening.

adamsmith

our ODF scan tool won't be of any help to you (it doesn't just require the three pipes, but more importantly it relies on the unique Zotero ID code to be embedded in the citation), so focus on getting RTF scan to work.

What exactly happens when you run the document through RTF scan? Have you tried with a simple test document with one or two citations?

hubbardd

Yes I have tried with a simple version created in wordpad. It seems to not pick up any citaitons of all (I tried typing in 6). If I copy and paste some text in from my document and it only picks up 2 of 6 citations. I also tried running the entire document and I get 9 of 200+. I'm not sure what else to try. Could it be some background formatting that I'm note seeing?

adamsmith

and the ones it doesn't catch -- are they listed under "unmapped citations" or no sign of them at all?

(edit: that is in the window that opens after the scan)

hubbardd

No sign at all.

adamsmith

Bizarre. Could you export three items that aren't scanning from Zotero as Zotero RDF, open the file in a text editor, select all --> copy,paste to https://gist.github.com/ --> Create Public Gist and provide the link here?

hubbardd

Yesiree!

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/adcc85d08e85ae751aa9

adamsmith

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ld3ykp3en0jn8p7/testscan.rtf?dl=0

Could you try running the document above through RTF scan, see if that works? It does for me locally after importing those three items.

rmhz

This is very helpful. I downloaded the file from dropbox and copied my manuscript to it. I conducted the RTF scan and it worked. Fantastic. What was the trick though?

BTW, after the scanning, I copied the text back to word for mac 2011. I tried to edit a citation but it did not work. Zotero gave an error that it is not recognized as a Zotero citation. Can I ask this question here or need another thread for this? Thank you.

adamsmith

RTF scan doesn't generate live Zotero citations. It just produces text output, so that's expected. Any questions beyond that, yes, better to start a new thread--this one is about RTF scan not working, and it appears that it does for you.