journalAbbreviation field

jeremyvancleve · September 25, 2019

I'd like to use the journal abbreviation when filing PDFs with zotfile, but I'm not sure what the rule is for when that field gets filled.

Sometimes, web imports (e.g., nature.com) seem to fill it, other times (PLOS Computational Biology) it does not or it gets filled simply with the full journal name.

Is there any way to populate this field on item import with ISO abbreviations no matter when the import comes from? Or, what determines whether this field gets filled? The translator for the website?

Thanks!

adamsmith · September 25, 2019

No there's no way to populate it automatically with the ISO abbreviation and yes, it's populated by the translator based on metadata available on the site -- typically if it's wrong (i.e. the full journal name) or missing, there's nothing we can do about it.

jeremyvancleve · September 25, 2019

Thanks for the reply @adamsmith! Sorry I missed this earlier thread:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/67047/answered-zotero-and-journals-abbreviations

I'm still learning Zotero, so could you help me understand what the barriers are between using the abbreviation code for the word processors,

https://github.com/zotero/zotero/blob/master/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/cite.js

in a plugin for standalone that could fill the journalAbbreviation field on import.

Alternatively, I have javascript code (based on old perl code) that abbreviates journal names using a jabref style list of abbreviations; is there a good way to incorporate that into a plugin?

Thanks again!