Unable to import exported ris (from Refworks Legacy) to Zotero.

emil.erixon
When I try to import my ris-files to Zotero (5.0.56) I get the following message:

"The selected file is not in a supported format."

This is one example of what the text-files looks like:

TY - JOUR
ID - 4
A1 - Hauser, Russ
A1 - Skakkebaek, Niels E.
A1 - Hass, Ulla
A1 - Toppari, Jorma
A1 - Juul, Anders
A1 - Andersson, Anna Maria
A1 - Kortenkamp, Andreas
A1 - Heindel, Jerrold J.
A1 - Trasande, Leonardo
T1 - Male reproductive disorders, diseases, and costs of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the European Union
Y1 - 2015
VL - 100
IS - 4
SP - 1267
EP - 1277
PB - Oxford University Press
JF - The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
M1 - Journal Article
ER -

When I use "Import from Clipboard" it works fine, so that's good. So where shouldn't be anything wrong with the ris-format. But why doesn't it work to import the file?

I read in older forum threads that I should try to reset the translators, in the advanced tab under preferences. I tried that, but it didn't help.

We are cancelling our RefWorks-subscription at my university, and we want to help our researchers to migrate to Zotero. And it would be much more convenient for us if the file import worked.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!
  • adamsmith
    I'd guess that it's saved as Rich Text rather than plain text? Can you open the file with a text editor like notepad? Also, we do support RefWorks tagged as an import format that might work slightly better
  • emil.erixon
    I can open it with notepad, and the file extension is .txt When I open it in notepad, however, all the text is on one line. Don't know if that's important.

    Does that mean that it's saved as plain text? Should it be in plain text?

    I tried also to export from Refworks in "RefWorks Tagged Format", with the same result.. It says the format isn't supported when I try to import the file, but it works when I import from the clipboard.

  • adamsmith
    edited October 18, 2018
    that's really odd. Could you submit a debug ID for trying to import such a file?
    https://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
    And would you mind uploading a sample file somewhere I can download it?

    edit: and yes, that does show it's plain text and it should be plain text, so that's looking right and Notepad is terrible with newlines.
  • emil.erixon
    I tried again with the "RefWords Tagged Format"-file again, and this is the debug ID:
    D890874405

    I also tried with the "Bibliographic Software" format-file (ris), and this is the debug ID:
    D1824406909

    You can download the files here:
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ogA5LzVOOp564jaZ9pk25_D5miGGFL4_
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sbhgjMS6suWONZ4S6vzpUS_vUHJjXWeR

    Thanks for taking the time to look at it!
  • dstillman
    Importing those works fine for me. They're saved with an unusual, antiquated end-of-line format (CR), but they should still work.
    Detected file charset as UTF-16BE
    Did you copy those directly into Google Drive, or did you somehow paste them into files there? Because your debug output says that Zotero is interpreting the files in a very unusual format. Based on the files you uploaded, that should say "Detected file charset as UTF-8", which is what it says for me.
  • dstillman
    @emil.erixon: Oh, actually, go to the Export pane of the Zotero preferences and look at the bottom. What is "Import Character Encoding" set to? It should be set to "(auto detect)". If it's set to UTF-16BE or anything else, change it back.
  • emil.erixon
    @dstillman Thank you for the suggestion! I changed the "Import Character Encoding" from UTF-16BE to (auto detect), and now it works! Great advice!

    Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, we are about to develop a guide for our researchers, explaining how to migrate from RefWorks, so maybe this is something worth mentioning? Or should it by default be set to (auto detect)? (But apparently it wasn't for me..)

    Another question, when exporting from RefWorks, you get the following options:

    Bibliographic Software (EndNote,Reference Manager,ProCite)
    BibTeX – RefWorks ID
    Citation List
    RefWorks Tagged Format
    RefWorks XML Format
    Tab Delimited

    Zotero seems to be able to handle most of them right, but is some format more preferable?

    Thanks again @dstillman and @adamsmith
  • dstillman
    It’s set to auto-detect by default. It’s possible you changed it by accident. This definitely isn’t something people should have to worry about.
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