Citavi import: Categories and keywords of annotations not imported

dstillman

This discussion was created from comments split from: Large Citavi Project Import: Categories/Collections get lost.

francescoragazzi

Hi there, I don't know if this is the right place to add this question, but it's about Citavi import. I noticed that the Citavi categories and keywords of annotations are not imported to Zotero. Is this correct? Is there a way to import those as well? While Zotero doesn't have a way to organize annotations in a hierarchy, at least it could import keywords as tags, no? Thanks!

tnajdek

Both categories and keywords, including keywords on annotations, are imported to Zotero. Categories are mapped to collections and keywords are mapped to tags.

Previously, Citavi categories would have been "flattened" when importing, i.e. hierarchy was lost, but with the latest version 6.0.13 this is no longer the case. Also, previously, tags from annotations weren't displayed in the main library view, this also has been fixed in the latest version.

Please try importing with the latest version and if you still see missing collections or tags, please let us know.

francescoragazzi

Hi!

Thanks @dstillman for putting this in this new thread, and thanks @tnajdek for the reply. Thank you also very much for building this Citavi importer, it's a lifesaver to be able to move everything so easily. My problem is still not solved, even after downloading v. 6.0.13

Let me summarize what happens for me

References:
1. Citavi keywords for references are mapped to Zotero keywords
2. Citavi categories for references are mapped to Zotero collections (with hierarchy, which is great)
=> So far so good.

Annotations:
1. Citavi keywords for annotations are mapped to Zotero keywords
2. Citavi categories for annotations disappear.

Is it a problem on my end or is it how the importer works at the moment? Thanks!

Francesco.

dstillman

So it sounds like it's working. As you noted, Zotero annotations don't have any hierarchy. So as long as annotation tags are coming through, it's working as expected.

francescoragazzi

I see what you are saying, but I guess my point is that annotation tags are not coming through at the moment, at least not in a way that is consistent with how Citavi works.

Let me explain: Citavi users can tag annotations in two ways: with keywords or in (hierarchical) categories. For their vast majority, they will not tag their annotations as Citavi "keywords", but as Citavi "categories", because this is how the program works (by doing so, annotations can be then manipulated in the "Reference view", listed, etc.). https://www1.citavi.com/sub/manual6/en/index.html?101_organizing_references_by_category.html (updated the link, the previous wasn't specific to this section)

Yet in the current implementation of your importer, these disappear.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that unless Citavi users can import Citavi annotation categories (for example mapped to Zotero keywords), all the work they put in categorizing their annotations is lost.

If I may suggest a very helpful way to implement this, it would be to allow Citavi annotation categories to maintain hierarchy, in the same way you did it for Citavi reference categories. For example by importing Citavi annotation categories as a Zotero tag called "Category 1>sub-category 1". Then people could decide how to sort all of that out.

The only working alternative would be for people to re-code their entire Citavi annotations from categories to keywords before importing to Zotero, but that doesn't seem very practical...

tnajdek

I think the link you've posted is slightly confusing as it describes assigning references to categories which we've already agreed are mapped to items and collections.

However, having looked through Citavi, I can see that by clicking on a "Knowledge" tab and right-clicking on an annotation I can assign it to additional categories on top the categories to which it has already been assigned to by its association with an item. I'm not sure if importing this relation as tags is a right thing as it would create a confusing scenario where categories are effectively mapped to both collections and tags.

francescoragazzi

@tnajdek Thanks for your reply. You are right, apologies it's the next page that I wanted to refer to: https://www1.citavi.com/sub/manual6/en/index.html?101_sorting_quotations_and_thoughts.html

Concerning your doubts: since it is annotations and not references we are talking about (sorry again for the confusion in my previous link), currently these categories are entirely lost. To reiterate my summary from the earlier post, currently Zotero's import behaviour is :

References:
1. Citavi keywords for references are mapped to Zotero keywords
2. Citavi categories for references are mapped to Zotero collections (with hierarchy, which is great)
=> So far so good.

Annotations:
3. Citavi keywords for annotations are mapped to Zotero keywords
4. Citavi categories for annotations are mapped to NOTHING.

My comments are about what happens for point 4.

I hope I made it clearer, and apologies for the earlier confusion with the wrong link.

Thank you so much once again for your interest in this issue, it's absolutely crucial to move from Citavi to Zotero...

francescoragazzi

Hi there @tnajdek & @dstillman I understand that you might consider this issue closed due to the reasons you both gave in this conversation. Would you however be willing to consider giving the option to users in the import interface to map Citavi annotation categories to Zotero keywords?

Ideally, the interface could offer the following options:

Mapping possibilities:
=============
Citavi Reference keywords are imported into Zotero keywords (checkbox)
Citavi Reference categories are imported into Zotero collections (checkbox)
Citavi Annotation keywords are imported into Zotero keywords (checkbox)
Citavi Annotation categories are imported into Zotero keywords (checkbox)

Alternatively, would there be a way to edit the import script to re-assign the field manually, say by editing a preference or configuration file?

Thanks again!

Francesco.

MarcusO

Hello,
I was succesfully importing my big database from Citavi to Zotero (about 10.000 entries). Thank you very much for this great possibility!

Most of import worked fine, but there are some problems:
- tags from citavi "Wissenselemente" (notes in word of zotero) have not been trasferred into zotero notes (text of notes are imported),
- standalone notes are not imported.
- Journal articles have sometimes numbers (issue), these numbers are only transfered in the field "extra" (as: issue).
- number of pages are not transferred
- tables are only importet with words not as structure.
- "Wissenselement of pictures" and "Wissenselement of file" are trasferred but without the link to the picture/file.
- roman numbers are transferred into arab ones,
- attachments are all transferred, unfortunately not with their titel, but all with title "Full Text".

Is there any hope that these difficulties could be adressed? Thank you very much.
Marcus

magout

Hello,
I imported a project from Citavi 6.15.2.0 into Zotero 6.0.36. The three main problems that I had (as far as I can tell for now), which might be shared with some of the other posts here are:

1 - "Keywords" of "knowledge items" in Citavi were not imported, even though the keywords of references were successfully imported as tags.

2 - "Thoughts" (i.e. knowledge items not assigned to references in Citavi) were not imported.

3 - Bullet points from knowledge items in Citavi disappear in Zotero. The text becomes one single paragraph.

Maybe problems 2 and 3 are not that bad. But the first problem is a major problem for me. I would love to know if this is a general problem when importing projects from Citavi into Zotero. If not, I would be thankful to anyone who can suggest a solution.

Best regards,
Mohammad