exporting pdfs from EndNote

chuckhaas · April 18, 2018

I've just reached my level of frustration with EndNote after having tried to recover a library about 4 times with no success.

So I have a library with about 5000 pdfs --- with EN, each of them is cozily in its own folder. How the heck do I get this into Zotero. I don't want to manually go thru 5000 folders.

I figure there must be a hack or script somewhere (I am on Mac with High Sierra)

bwiernik · April 18, 2018

No need for hacking. Just put your exported XML file in the Endnote .Data folder.
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/importing_records_from_endnote

chuckhaas · April 18, 2018

If I can recover the library I certainly will try this. But if not, I'm stuck just trying to import the pdf's (of course loosing the references that don't have attachments).

adamsmith · April 18, 2018

If you absolutely can't recover your library* you can just create a smart folder (https://www.howtogeek.com/216348/how-to-create-and-use-smart-folders-on-os-x-to-organize-data-on-your-mac/ )with all PDFs and then drag them to Zotero. I wouldn't do 5000 at once (not sure how happy Zotero would be with that), but maybe groups of 200 or so.

* But you really want to try to get an export from Endnote. Depending on the PDFs, the quality of the metadata that Zotero will be able to get for them is going to be a lot lower than what you have in Endnote. Also, of course, you'll lose all your notes that you have in Endnote.