Inserting batch author names

aminhilal

Hi,

Many times we come across reports with a long list of author names, with no ready available citation file to import.

I wonder if it possible to add a feature for adding a batch of author names (copy-paste) instead of entering them one by one. The "new line" or the "," can be used as a delimiter between the names.

Regards, A

dstillman

This works — try it. In two-field mode, paste

Smith, John
Doe, Jane

into the last-name field.

aminhilal

That is, Awesome !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kJYqBGeMLI

robpeters

I just tried pasting a list of author names, separated by linebreaks in MS Word, as per dstillman's suggestion. It doesn't work for me. All the authors' names show up as a long list in the last-name field. dstillman: do you have more specifics on how to do this? Thanks, Rob

m.souter

Very late response (in case this is still relevant to anyone). I had the problem at the top of this thread and applied dstillman's solution without a problem - you might want to check that *paragraph breaks* rather than *line breaks* are used. These are revealed if you click on the ¶ paragraph symbol (its name is a mega Scrabble word - 'pilcrow') in the Home menu. Paragraph breaks show as ¶, line breaks show up as ↵
You can batch-change these with 'replace' (shortcut Ctrl+H ). Use ^l in *find* box and ^p in *replace* box (must both be lower case). Should swap them all around.

I initially got (surname, forname, et al. year) format in the document [using OU Harvard]. When I used tab to skip between surname and forename boxes a bit of Zotero magic happend and the whole list then adusted. When I refreshed the document in Word the citation became (surname, et al. year).

johanzi

@dstillman: Thanks a lot, a time saver, really!
@robpeters: Use a copied list of authors from a plain text editor (e.g. Notepad++). MS Word uses a specific end-of-line format that probably causes you trouble.

NB: I noted that the method of @dstillman is not correct to get the last and first names separated and in the correct order. I found a way to solve this:

- Change the author name field to single field (Switch to single field) (little icon on the right of the field)
- Copy the list of authors, that should contain on each line first_name last_name (separated by a single space) (do not use Word but a plain text editor, e.g. Notepad++)

John Smith
Jane Doe

- Paste the list into the field box
- Then switch individual author to two fields (Switch to two fields) by clicking the icon on the right of the author name
- The last name will now appear in the first position and the first name in the second position (as it should)