BibTex import from citavi including pdf attachments

Br00m
Hi everyone,

I´d like to import my citavi library (export via bibtex) into zotero. Unfortunately zotero doesn´t recognize the attached pdf files at all (unlike here https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22579/bibtex-import-pdf-not-found/). My bibtex entry looks like this:

@article{Anderson.2011,
author = {Anderson, Melissa S. and Steneck, Nicholas H.},
year = {2011},
title = {The problem of plagiarism},
pages = {90--94},
volume = {29},
number = {1},
issn = {10781439},
journal = {Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations},
doi = {\url{10.1016/j.urolonc.2010.09.013}},
file = {Anderson 2011 the problem of plagiarism :Q\:\\10_Projekte\\Beschaemte_Wissenschaft\\10_Material\\Literatur\\Citavi_Beschämte_Wissenschaft\\CitaviFiles\\Anderson 2011 the problem of plagiarism .pdf:pdf}
}

How can I get my pdfs into zotero?

Thanks a lot!
  • adamsmith
    would using RIS be an option? Bibtex file export/import, especially under Windows, is kind of a mess (bibtex was never designed to handle file import/export so there is no standard) - I'm assuming Zotero can't deal with all the escaped backslashes in the filepath (and they look inconsitent to me - all except the first are escaped).
  • noksagt
    The first slash is there to escape the colon after the drive letter.
    I think that Windows should be able the double slashes, but I don't think the URL handler assumes that you can escape characters (and I don't think most other apps use them) & I would guess it is failing on that first slash.

    A work around for now may be to find/replace "\\" with "\" and "\:" with ":".

    This assumes, of course, that you have Q: mounted. Because files are copied to the zotero storage directory, broken links will not be imported.
  • Br00m
    Thanks for your help, but unfortunately none of this is working.
    Anyway, I decided to add all my files manually which in the end might not be the fastest but maybe easiest way...
  • noksagt
    It may also be the umlaut.
    What is the real path to the file? Does putting:
    Q:\10_Projekte\Beschaemte_Wissenschaft\10_Material\Literatur\Citavi_Beschämte_Wissenschaft\CitaviFiles\Anderson 2011 the problem of plagiarism .pdfin your browser's location bar open it?
  • emilianoeheyns
    The latest version of the better-bibtex plugin implements this. I've submitted a patch to the Zotero repository to also fix it for regular BibTex imports.
  • emilianoeheyns
    Even if you change the backslashes to slashes import won't work; for import of absolute file paths, Zotero needs the path to be in file: url format. If you want a quick one-off fix, replace all '\\' with '/', and add 'file\:///' in front of the Q. For a structural fix, use BBT, or a version of Zotero that implements this.
  • aurimas
    This should be fixed now and imports should work out-of-the-box without any edits. Update translators via Preferences -> General -> Update Now
  • guangzhi
    Hi everyone.

    I've been developing a small tool to facilitate people migrating from Mendeley to other alternatives, and I'm working on zotero specific exports now. Currently it works OK on linux, but when testing out on windows the import of the .bib file couldn't fetch the PDFs. I believe it is due to incorrect file path formatting.

    My .bib entry now looks like this:

    file = {Allan - 2012 - The Role of Water Vapour in Earth's Energy Flows.pdf:D:\Downloads\Menotexport-master\Menotexport-master\test\Allan - 2012 - The Role of Water Vapour in Earth's Energy Flows.pdf:pdf}

    The zotero version is 4.0.28.7.
    Please help.
  • guangzhi
    Hi again.

    To answer myself: I think @emilianoeheyns's solution still works, I do need to add "file\:///" in front of the driver, and escape the colon after the driver letter.

    Anyway, please check out my little tool: Menotexport, which can be found on Github.
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