Import from JafRef with links

WIldBob
Hi,

I am thinking of changing from JabRef to Zotero, but seem to be unable to import the links in my .bib file. I have this:

http://groups.google.com/group/zotero-dev/browse_thread/thread/25f990892e713da4

but since I am not a developper nor a programmer, I don't know how to go about doing it. I have also seen the different discussions on pdf imports. I don't want to import information from the pdfs, only keep the links...

An example from the .bib file:

@ARTICLE{alteyrac2006cjw,
author = {Alteyrac, J. and Cloutier, A. and Zhang, SY},
year = {2006},
title = {Characterization of juvenile wood to mature wood transition age in
black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP) at different stand densities
and sampling heights},
journal = {Wood Sci. Tech.},
volume = {40},
pages = {124-138},
number = {2},
file = {:E\:\\ref\\Alteyrac 2006 WoodSciTechnol.pdf:PDF},
publisher = {Springer},
}

I am not going to go about doing it manually, since the number of references is too high to consider it. This being said, the rest is imported perfectly. Will it be possible in the foreseeable future to have this option automated ?

This being said, Zotero seems very interesting, and I hope to be able to work with it...

Thanks.

Rob
  • towolf
    I would like to see this as well. What I think would be nice to have is a way to preserve the file links both ways from Zotero to JabRef and from JabRef to Zotero.

    I see that in Zotero the attachments are stored by reference to a MIME type such as "application/pdf" for a pdf file and a file:// URI.

    In JabRef this is solved by a single field that may contain paths to any number of associated files. Associated with a path is a file type that unfortunately is not a mime-type but an arbitrary string like "PDF" or "OpenOffice Spreadsheet".
    Example:
    file = {human-redable description:/home/user1/file1.odf:OpenDocument text;h-r desc.:/home/user1/file2.pdf:PDF;:file3.txt:Text},

    One entry consists of "description:filepath:filetype" where "description" is optional and "filepath" may be absolute or relative to the .bib file. The "filetype" is one out of a set of several default strings like "PDF", "PostScript", "Text", etc (see http://alice-dsl.net/towolf/jabref-external.png ) which can be extended by the user. The field separator inside an entry is the colon. The separator between file records is the semicolon.

    Now when exporting to BibTex, it would be nice if the attachment paths would be rewritten to conform to this file field. Currently I use the comfort of Zotero and it’s site translators to collect all kinds of references on the web. But I will switch to JabRef as soon as it get’s to work in LaTeX. A tool working natively in BibTeX is more suitable for that. If the links to the attachments were preserved this would be a much more smooth experience.

    Likewise for importing of .bib files. There is already a function in the bibtex translator that looks for a "pdf" field and reads in the absolute file path to the pdf file. This was comitted recently:
    https://www.zotero.org/trac/changeset/2964

    Unfortunately this format has been deprecated in JabRef for a while. The current format is the one described above. The current JabRef will automatically rewrite the old, simple "pdf" fields to the current "file" field format.

    [ see Version 2.3beta (June 28th, 2007)
    http://jabref.sourceforge.net/revisionhistory.php ]
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