How to import Word bibliography into Zotero

pedrovgp
Hi,

I have a Word 2007 dokument which contains a lot of bibliographical reference and I would like to import them to Zotero. I can export a XML file (Word generates it in .../users/.../AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Bibliography) but Zotero won't recognize it.

Is there a tool to convert it to a Zotero readable RDF file? Or is there another way to import the bibliographical references from a Word file into Zotero?

Thank you very much.
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  • adamsmith
    unfortunately not, afaik. Zotero can read many standard bibliographic formats - RIS, bibtex, BibIX among them. If Words ref management can't export any of these, that's pretty much the end of the story (and one of the many reasons not to use it).

    If Word/MS publishes the schema for the XML somewhere, it may be possible that someone would volunteer a translator, but
    a) given that MS is MS I wouldn't get my hopes up and
    b) no promises even if they have published this.
  • RintzeRintze
    http://mahbub.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/deciphering-microsoft-office-2007-bibliography-format/
  • Samudaya Nanayakkara
    Hi,

    I had the same problem and this article solved this issue;

    http://studies.k-jahn.de/2012/02/22/exporting-a-word-library-to-latexbibtex/

    Best Regards
    Samu
  • Bostjan
    Perhaps not the best ethical way to get data from word to Zotero is using EndNote. Some faculties enable there student to use web version of EndNote (or similar program), while I came a cross this solution when I was testing various references managers. While testing a free but trial version of EndNote (available from their web page) I used it to save word reference library to Bibix and then imported it to Zotero.
  • hkazmi1
    I tried to export Word references per the website link above. But the file "Word2Bibtex" did not download - it's a text file.

    Anyone know where else to find a converter like this one?
  • markt
    Yeah, Bostjan, I have Endnote Desktop which I don't use because it's rubbish! It was useful to convert Word refs to RIS then import into Zotero!
  • ldiscua
    The method posted by Samudaya Nanayakkara worked perfectly for me.

    @hkazmi1 & others facing that problem: If your browser opens the Word2Bibtex file instead of offering to save it, use right click and select Save Link As...
    Or copy the text to notepad and save it as Word2Bibtex.xsl in the right location (If you get a message along the lines of "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." omit that)

    Also, note that for Word 2007 I had to save the file in:
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\Bibliography\Style
  • mpuebla
    I have the same problem and have not solved any of the above solutions. I have Microsoft Office 2010.

    To apply the method Samudaya Nanayakkara not clear to me which way to put the "bibtex.xls" file.

    Prove also Bostjan method with trial version of EndNote, not cause any error in the import but did nothing.

    The variant "JabRef" does not work, apparently my java virtual machine is outdated.

    I would appreciate a solution to this. So far I have felt very comfortable with cross references on manager of Microsoft Office But I am getting realizing that it is a trap to keep you tied to him.

    Greetings.
  • mpuebla
    edited May 30, 2014
    hahaha ... Finally I succeeded!, thanks to JabRef. This was the only tool able to import the xml microsoft word. Then I exported it to bibtext format (. Bib) and then import from Zotero.Tremendous shock!, I now see how to integrate Zotero with Microsoft Word. Greetings.
  • opey11
    how do I take all the entries I have in a zotero library and have them come out as one alphabetized word bibliography? Thanks, PJ
  • adamsmith
    go to my library, select all, right-click-->Create Bibliograpy for Selected Items.
    Done.
  • opey11
    thanks, but that doesn't do it, the folder I have the bibliography in has 314 items, when I select all, all i get are the 25 entries on the first page, if I select all on each page it only gives me one page of 25 entries.
  • aurimas
    You need to be doing this in the Zotero client (either Standalone or Firefox add-on) not online at zotero.org.
  • adamsmith
    edited December 8, 2014
    continued here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/42883/trying-to-create-bibliography-from-zotero-not-from-citations/#Item_1
  • kg122863
    I have Office 15 on a Windows 8 HP laptop. I had to refresh my computer and lost my entire Zotero library. I want to import bibliographies from Word documents I've used Zotero in. I've tried all the above solutions and nothing worked. There is no Biliography folder for me to download the Word2Bibtex file, and even if there was it's says i need admin permission (which is weird cause i'm the admin on the computer).

    Any suggestions?

    PS not very computer savy, but I can follow directions pretty well.
  • aurimas
    Are you trying to import references from Word reference manager? i.e. references you enter under References -> Manage Sources?

    It sounds to me like you want to extract references that you had inserted into a Word _document_ via _Zotero_ Your best bet, I think, is to use MLZ to extract references. Let us know if you decide to go this route, because there are some things to consider beforehand.
  • kg122863
    aurimas

    I am trying to extract reference i inserted from Zotero into a Word doc before I lost my library. So yes, you are right. What are the things to consider for MLZ and how does it work?
  • aurimas
    See https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/35987/import-old-zotero-bibliography-from-word-field-codes-still-present-into-library/#Item_8 For anything more, follow up either in that thread or start a new one.
  • RaimundE
    Hi,

    what I am looking for is similar, but not quite the same as I did not lose any library data - as of yet :-)
    I just wrote an extensive article in word, citing from my Zotero library, creating a word bibliography - everything worked great.
    Now I would like to see in Zotero a selection of all these papers cited in my article to export them to a list. Is there any way to do that?
    Thanks
    Raimund
  • adamsmith
    Same answer: Planned, not currently possible with regular Zotero, possible with MLZ Zotero if you want to go that way.
  • RaimundE
    Thanks for the quick reply - am a little scared to trade my beloved Zotero to an unknown fork, so manual lbor will have to do here.

    Thanks again for providing the software and the support - it's just awesome!
    R.
  • Gax
    I am a brand-new Zotero user with some MS Word 2013 (8.1) documents containing bibliographies. I'd really like to wean myself away from Word's bibliography. I tried K-Jahn's word2bibtex style (copied into correct folder -- but word15 not word14); however, the style did not show up in Word's style list after restarting Word. So I couldn't export anything. Any ideas would be most appreciated.
  • daspranab
    same problems as Gax here: any solution?

    I have very large bibliographies that need to be converted to zotero.
  • daspranab
    Also, how to solve the same problems w/Word 2011 (OSX) and Bibdesk bibliographies?
  • adamsmith
    bibdesk is just bibtex, so you'd be able to import that into Zotero without problems.

    Directly from Word, going through JabRef sound most promising, then.
  • agreen11
    Solution that worked for me!

    The link below from UCSF details a process that can be adapted from endnote to Zotero. WizFolio allows coping the reference list from MS Word into WizFolio which can then be exported to a RIS file. This file can be shared or copied and pasted into Zotero via "import from clipboard' directly into a subcollection.

    Make sure to check that the references imported correctly, WizFolio got about 1 in 10 of mine wrong.

    https://blogs.library.ucsf.edu/inplainsight/2013/09/19/using-wizfolio-to-transfer-a-ms-word-bibliography-to-endnote-or-refworks/


    Hope this helps

    Note: Free WizFolio account allows only 50 references to be imported per month.
  • RintzeRintze
    I had to refresh my computer and lost my entire Zotero library. I want to import bibliographies from Word documents I've used Zotero in.
    I created a tool, "Reference Extractor", to quickly extract embedded Zotero references from .docx Word documents. It's available at http://rintze.zelle.me/ref-extractor/. The extracted item metadata (in CSL JSON format) can be (re)imported into Zotero.

    P.S. Feedback is more than welcome, and can be given either here or at the code repository at https://github.com/rmzelle/ref-extractor.
    P.P. S. There are no privacy concerns: while it is a website, the extraction takes place entirely on your computer, and nobody has access to the Word documents you process with the tool.
  • RintzeRintze
    Note: Free WizFolio account allows only 50 references to be imported per month.
    Apparently WizFolio is on its way out: "By end of year 2017, we will halt all activities in WizFolio. ... This new platform, EEWOWW (pronounced as ee-wow) will replace WizFolio." (http://blog.wizfolio.com/?p=685)

    Not sure if EEWOWW will have the same import feature.
  • ShawnSHU
    Rintze, Thank you so much!!!! Your ref-extractor works well. I can easily extract Zotero references from a Word document then import it to my Zotero library.
  • IrisHsu
    EEWOWW does offer the same import feature as Wizfolio. So you can copy references as text, paste it on EEWOWW "import from clipboard", and let EEWOWW fill up bibliographic information for you. Then you can export them as RIS or Bibtex file.
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