Bulk edit "Publisher" and "Place" field

smilingkafka
Dear all,

First, thanks for the great work and constant improvements you've given Zotero so far. I really enjoy using it more and more.
Now for my issue: When I'm downloading bibliographical information, sometimes the same publisher shows up in different styles, e.g. "University of Virginia Press" and "Univ. of Virginia Press". Sometimes this goes for places, too: "Cologne" and "Köln" (the German version) for the German city. When I notice, I change that right away, but sometimes I don't realise and then am stuck with different formats, which don't look nice when combined in a paper.
So here's my question: Can I bulk edit these fields so that, for example, all "Univ. of...." can be changed to "University of..." at once?
Thanks a million in advance for your help!
  • adamsmith
    Depends on how adventurous you are. There's no user friendly solution, but there is this:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/javascript_api#examplebatch_editing
  • smilingkafka
    Thanks for your quick reply.
    Does that also work when I'm using the standalone version of Zotero (I also have Zotero installed as a Firefox add-on, sharing the same database, I guess, and acting as a data miner only)?
  • smilingkafka
    Nevermind, already tried it, and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the help!
  • bjohas
    Hi both, could you give a bit more detail on this, esp. with Zotero 5? Would I install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/execute-js/ in Zotero 5 stand-alone? Is the JS console accessible in Zotero 5 otherwise?
  • smilingkafka
    Hello,

    I haven't had to bulk edit with the new Zotero-version, which supports only stand-alone. Thus, I can only tell you that with prior editions you indeed installed the add-on you referred to and followed the instructions linked to by adamsmith in this post. That always worked easily for me.
    I guess it really depends if the new browser plugins still communicate with Zotero's database in a way that a change in the first has an effect in the latter place. Maybe you could just give it a try and post your result here?
  • adamsmith
    There's no reasonable way to do this with the current Zotero version, I'm afraid. Only option I'm aware of is with the server API (assuming your library is synced), e.g. using the pyzotero library.
Sign In or Register to comment.