Reference Manager to Zotero

chbrainlab

I am very new to Zotero and am trying to import ~5000 references from Research Manager 12 into Zotero.
The references appear to transfer over nicely except for the RM fields "User def 1" and "User def 2". These fields are necessary to maintain, and I would love to find a way to transfer the information over the Zotero without having to do it manually (for ALL 5000 refs).
When I export from RM in XML format, the "User def 1" field pops up in Zotero with the tag "_EndnoteXML import" and the information is in the note. However, the "User def 2" (which is the most important of the two) information is not.

Is there a way to have the RM user def information to be imported in Zotero in the info tab under "Extra," or even in "notes"?

Any ideas/help with this would be much appreciated.

noksagt

How does the field appear in the file you export from RM?

chbrainlab

How does it look in the program? Or is there some way to view the information/script in the file another way?

bwiernik

If you open the RIS file with a plain text editor, like Notepad or TextEdit, what is the label for that field?

noksagt

He is, apparently, using Endnote XML format. A web browser should also display this.

chbrainlab

I've looked in the .txt file and this is an example of a reference. The "U1" and "U2" are the fields I am referring to that would like to retain.

TY - JOUR
ID - 5038
T1 - Excessive cocaine use results from decreased phasic dopamine signaling in the striatum
A1 - Willuhn,I.
A1 - Burgeno,L.M.
A1 - Groblewski,P.A.
A1 - Phillips,P.E.M.
Y1 - 2014///
KW - basal ganglia
KW - cocaine
KW - dopamine
KW - drug
KW - nicotine
KW - phasic
KW - phasic dopamine
KW - Plasticity
KW - rat
KW - rodent
KW - striatum
KW - synaptic plasticity
RP - NOT IN FILE
JA - Nature Neuroscience
U1 - yes
U2 - Holroyd and Umemoto, 2016
ER -

chbrainlab

I have found a work around wherein I export my RM library into RIS, upload into Endnote, and then export into XML for Zotaro. This is somewhat tedious but it does seem to reatain those fields and place them in Zotaro's notes. It would perhaps be more tidy to have them in Extras, but this just might work.
Words of wisdom welcome on this though...

noksagt

If you use RIS, neither U1 nor U2 will import into Zotero. You may set the hiddren prefererence extensions.zotero.translators.RIS.import.ignoreUnknown to 'false' and both will be imported into an attached note. You may, alternatively, find+replace those with something that Zotero will import. In your first post, it seemed like you were using some format other than RIS though.

bwiernik

@chbrainlab If you open your RIS file in the text editor, then find-and-replace "U1 -" and "U2 -" with "M2 -", they will import directly into Extra.

@adamsmith Would it be reasonable to add U1 and U2 to the RIS.js translator?

noksagt

RIS used to specify U1 through U5, but the most recent documentation doesn't mention these and most modern clients likely don't export them. And, as user-defined fields, it is a bit ambiguous what shoud be done other than something like what extensions.zotero.translators.RIS.import.ignoreUnknown=false.

chbrainlab

@noksagt @bwiernik thank you for your help! I did find-and-replace for U1 and U2 in text editor and it seems to have worked perfectly. This saved SO much time. Looking forward to getting to know the program a bit more.