Search and replace in specific fields

IDIOM_bibliography · June 4, 2018

I need to search and replace a specific string, let' say xyz and replace it with abc, within the field "extra". Do I remember correct that in earlier versions of Zotero a function "find and replace" was available, and if yes, why did it disappear? How do other people handle this problem now? I exported my Library as CSV and could easily exchange the strings. But what happens when I am going to import this file again: will all entries be doubled? We have 20,000 items in our library and I don't want to destroy a work of 4 years. An advise? Best, Christian

noksagt · June 4, 2018

No, you don't remember correctly. Batch editing is planned, but has never been available.

But this is one way for advanced users to do it now:
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/javascript_api#examplebatch_editing

bwiernik · June 5, 2018

Note that there isn’t currently a good way to access the JavaScript API on Zotero 5. You can use PyZotero in Python to accomplish a similar result.