Trying to Import Library from Papers

BG
I am trying to import my library (around 400 papers) from Papers (1.9.3) into Zotero (2.0). I have tried exporting the file as both a RIS and BibTex Library. Each time I go to import the library Zotero gets stuck and continues to leave a message of "Importing items..." for hours.

What is the problem? I had done this before it it went smoothly. Is this a problem with 2.0?

I am on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard (10.6.1)
  • noksagt
    No, it should not be an intrinsic problem.

    Are you using the latest version (i.e., what is the minor minor version # of Zotero 2 that you are using)? Do you see any any other features (such as a popup prompting you to save or open the file you are trying to import)? Have you tried to follow:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs
  • BG
    I am using Zetero 2.0b7.2. After I click to import the RIS file a pop-up appears prompting me to save or open (usually Papers is the default). I wasn't sure if this was a bug or I was doing something wrong.
  • noksagt
    You might try importing from the clipboard. This is a zotero bug that has a couple of potential work arounds:
  • BG
    Thanks....I worked around it by changing the Import Character Encoding in Zotero's Advanced preferences from "auto detect" to the UTF -8
  • ajlyon
    In case someone runs into problems with importing BibTeX from Papers 1.x to Zotero, watch out for illegal item types. These will prevent Zotero from correctly importing your items. You'll need to do a search-and-replace on the BibTeX to replace the types of items like @Review, @Letter, and other capitalized types with real ones. In my experience, they could all be safely replaced by "@article". Papers apparently has (or had) a nasty habit of just making up types.
  • leasiksou
    edited May 20, 2011
    I would like to transfer my library from Papers on a mac to Zotero on a PC. How should I proceed?
    Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    I'd recommend experimenting with some different output formats - BibTex, RIS, maybe Papers supports something else useful - see which import looks best.
  • bonobo
    I did exactly that yesterday, if you are not easy with the terminal, vi and sed, forget about it. Things that you have to do are here:

    1/ Say goodbye to Papers 1.9 and export your library as a .bib file, open this file in vi.

    2/ open the created bib file and run these commands in vi

    %s,\.pdf},\.pdf:application\/pdf},g
    %s,file.*null)},,
    %s,.*\\url.*,,g
    %s,local_url\ =\ {file:\/\/localhost,file\ =\ {file\.pdf:,g

    this will transform the following buggy lines in the original bib file:

    url = \url{http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/29/8/2355},
    url = {http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/29/8/2355},
    local_url = {file://localhost/Users/lalala/Documents/Papers2/Articles/J_Neurosci_Bla.pdf}


    into such lines that zotero important likes

    url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4475-07.2008},
    file = {file.pdf:/Users/lalala/Documents/Papers2/Articles/J_Neurosci_Bla.pdf:application/pdf}


    if you had imported the original .bib file directly, you would have had all the articles in zotero, however the link to the pdfs would be broken.

    3/ I recommend you move all your pdfs to where Zotero stores the documents, namely the storage folder. Check "Data Directory Location" from the preferences. There is a folder there called "Storage". So you have to change accordingly the path "/Users/lalala/Documents/Papers2/etc..." to "/Users/lalala/LOCATIONOFDATADIRECTORY/storage".

    4/ I recommend that you sort your articles by title in Papers before exporting. This is helpful when the importing crashes, then you would easily go back to the .bib file and find out which entry is making the trouble. I had many cases where the path to the pdf was not correct and this makes the importer crash. So you might need few repeats until you get all your data in zotero.
  • dstillman
    3/ I recommend you move all your pdfs to where Zotero stores the documents, namely the storage folder. Check "Data Directory Location" from the preferences. There is a folder there called "Storage". So you have to change accordingly the path "/Users/lalala/Documents/Papers2/etc..." to "/Users/lalala/LOCATIONOFDATADIRECTORY/storage".
    Don't do this. The 'storage' directory shouldn't be touched by anything other than Zotero itself.
  • bonobo
    What you say makes very much sense, today I realized that all the pdf files that I had moved in storage folder were absolutely not used by Zotero when opening a reference. Zotero created its own folder structure and copied all the pdfs inside these folders. So I basically I ended up deleting all the pdf files that I myself copied. The step 3 is absolutely useless as Dan says.
  • aminhilal
    Is possible to sync the Papers database (probably sql lite file) with Zotero ?
  • adamsmith
    no. very unlikely to happen, too.
  • aminhilal
    Interoperability is a great. Mendeley for example has such a feature (sync with Zotero).
  • adamsmith
    edited October 23, 2015
    yeah--Zotero has open and pretty well documented source code...makes that a whole lot easier. (Sync is btw. also a bit of a misnomer for what Mendeley does: it's only one way, so it's more like an automatic import.)
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