Change Item Type of multiple records or Search and Replace

Negyb
Hi,
I've imported over a thousand PDF's of books, and while many of them had metadata automatically retrieved, many were imported as "journal article" item types. Is there a way to change the Item type of say 500 records in one shot (manually changing so many would be cumbersome).
By extension is there anyway to change data in fields of multiple items (for example change Volume in Title field to Vol. .... some kind of search and replace functionality. One can drag multiple records onto a tag to have that tag added to all... anything similar for other fields? Down the horizon maybe?
Thanks
NJ
  • Negyb
    I was able to export as RIS and change the tag from JOUR to BOOK, then reimport. But it would be nice to have a search replace function for other fields.
  • dstillman
    Batch editing is planned. (It's currently possible to make batch changes using either the local JavaScript API or by using the web API (generally with a third-party library like pyzotero), but there's not yet a UI option to do so.)
  • Negyb
    thanks, Ill try to learn some Java in the meantime.
  • dstillman
    (JavaScript, not Java)
  • moore.709
    edited December 28, 2020
    I was just looking into this and it is in Zutilo now . . .
    * enable "Copy Item Fields" and "Paste Item Type"
    and use those.
    You can select any number of records before doing "Paste Item Type".
    I think the one caveat is that it will not prompt you if you make a Type change that causes fields to be dropped -- any fields not in the new type will just be gone.
  • Mart
    Unfortunately, this (copy pasting from Zutilo), doesn't work to change the Item Type.
    I've just created an empty Book item type, then selected many references that were wrongly classified as Journal Article, pasted non-empty item fields and... no effect whatsoever.
    It did work for other fields, but not for item type...
  • qqbb
    @Mart: Use Zutilo's "Paste item type", not "Paste non-empty item fields".

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/85593/editing-multiple-items-at-once
  • Mart
    ! Didn't see that in my Zutilo menu. But it is actually an option under Zutilo preferences. Indeed I probably had to go preferences before and select the ones I wanted, so... my idiot!

    - Lesson learned: check "preferences" before posting a question...

    Anyway, you're being very helpful; thanks a lot! :)
  • LWTaylor
    This whole discussion just saved me a tonne of future mouse clicking, thank you : )
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