Converting reference field codes between programs

magsmanston · April 10, 2009

Hi,

My supervisor has an irrational aversion to any reference manager which is not Endnote. Despite repeated discussions, he refuses to consider using zotero.

I have foolishly written a long document, using the zotero word plugin, which my supervisor now has to be able to revise and edit using endnote. You can perhaps see where this is going.

Is there any way for this to be feasible, or do I have a long night on my hands creating an endnote library and reformatting the entire document manually? I note that in Endnote it is possible to strip the in text references and just use the VBscript field codes instead. Is it possible to do this with the zotero fields and reformat them en masse with Endnote? I don't suppose they'd be formatted in the same way at all.

Any help anybody can give on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Details:
WindowsXP
Word2003
EndnoteX

Cheers!

bdarcus · April 10, 2009

I have foolishly written a long document, using the zotero word plugin, which my supervisor now has to be able to revise and edit using endnote. You can perhaps see where this is going.

So just to be clear on the precise issues here: your adviser needs to be able to open your document with live Zotero citation fields, edit the document, and give it back to you, such that your citations are still live?

E.g. it is not a requirement that they be able to edit or add citations?

Is there any way for this to be feasible, or do I have a long night on my hands creating an endnote library and reformatting the entire document manually? I note that in Endnote it is possible to strip the in text references and just use the VBscript field codes instead. Is it possible to do this with the zotero fields and reformat them en masse with Endnote? I don't suppose they'd be formatted in the same way at all.

I think you need some input from Dan Stillman on the details, which I have a hunch are not pretty, but I'm going to ask an obvious question: why can't your adviser simply comment on a paper version? As an adviser, that's what I would do in this case.

Alternately, why not try an experiment: create a tiny document with one Zotero citation, and send it to a colleague who is not using Zotero, ask them to open and edit it, and send it back; then see what happens.

noksagt · April 10, 2009

It sounds as if magsmanston's supervisor wants to be able to add/remove/edit citations in your document with EndNote. There is no automated way to do this right now, it is not a trivial problem, and the opposite direction (converting EndNote citations in a document to Zotero citations) would likely be implemented first (greater demand & of greater benefit to Zotero users).

If bdarcus is correct in his interpretation:

E.g. it is not a requirement that they be able to edit or add citations?

Then references can be preserved in copies of Word without the Zotero plugin.

why can't your adviser simply comment on a paper version? As an adviser, that's what I would do in this case.

Different authors do have different preferences, many of which can run deep. The commenting/change tracking in MS Word is very popular. The latter does allow you to easily make very large changes to a document and is much better than paper. (OO.o 3's collaboration features are finally up to par).

My advisors liked LaTeX submissions: they were fast-class citizens on arXiv, they looked better to reviewers, etc. They even appreciated the benefit of the text-based format; younger collaborators and I kept the document in SVN & could edit simultaneously. But they still didn't like writing TeX or using any of the various LaTeX editors. I had to convert my TeX to a Word document so that they could edit it there. They were (probably are) still EndNote users, but fortunately they found it more efficient to insert a comment to add a reference, rather than to try to track down a reference, themselves.

But, I'm probably preaching to the choir; bdarcus wants to solve the babel of citation formats as much as anyone & you certainly would see this as a primary use case.

My suggestion to magsmanston is a social one: see if your supervisor is flexible enough to suggest changes to your citation without him having to make them. It is probably less work for him. It is also probably a little more work for you, but might not be as much work as converting your document to use EndNote.