Mendeley Import!

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  • Philipp Rommel
    @aurimas:
    The plugin to import data from mendeley into zotero via api, is it still being worked on? For colwiz this works really nicely so I think this would definitely be worth the effort.

    Cheers,
    Philipp
  • Philipp Rommel
    Just wanted to bump this... is a plugin to import data from Mendeley via its API still in the pipeline?
  • aurimas
    A bit busy with personal stuff atm, but yes, it's still planned.
  • dmilton
    Given that this thread is getting bit dated and ends with mention of some new methods on the horizon:
    1. What is the current best practice for exporting from Mendeley to Zotero?
    2. On a Mac is BibTex preferred over RIS? (and RIS on Windows?)
    3. Is there any trick to getting PDF files to migrate with the library?
    4. Are annotations in PDFs, notes, and tags also migrated?
    5. Is there anything special about migrating group files?
    Thanks
  • adamsmith
    1. nothing new
    2. difference is going to be small. I'd try the three methods (RIS, Bibtex, Endnote XML) out with a small number of tricky entries (unusual item types, especially) and see what works best.
    3. PDF files should migrate using all of these out of the box. Note this was broken in Zotero 4.0.25, so make sure you have an up-to-date version (the main downside using bibtex on Windows is that this was mostly broken).
    4. Unfortunately not. Mendeley doesn't export PDF annotations in any format we can reasonably access (though it would likely be possible via API, which is the method that aurimas has been working on, I believe).
    5. They should work the same way.
  • dmilton
    Thanks! Just to clarify on # 4 -- notes and tags will migrate, but PDF annotations will not?
  • adamsmith
    I'm pretty sure about notes and tags, yes, but haven't checked in a while and it's possible it depends on the format -- Zotero imports them from all three, but I don't know exactly what Mendeley does on export.
  • dmilton
    Notes and tags transferred well, as did the PDF files. I used bibTex on a Mac.
  • fschuman
    edited March 12, 2015
    Is there a way to migrate the "Added" field? I browse literature in part by remembering the time I added something to the library. But when importing to Zotero, all papers get assigned the date of the import and this information is lost.
  • adamsmith
    I'm pretty sure Mendeley doesn't even export that, does it?
  • fschuman
    No, it doesn't. But I guess it's provided via the API.
  • adamsmith
    yeah, we don't have API-based import at this time, so the answer is no.
  • aarontimo
    Hi everyone,

    I've tried importing part of my Mendeley library into Zotero using RIS, BibTex and XML. RIS definitely seems to be the better format in terms of distinguishing between different item types.

    However, none of the above formats successfully transfer over the notes field from Mendeley. Have any other users encountered this issue? Is there a better solution than manually copying and pasting the information over.

    Thanks for your advice.
  • hyiltiz
    Importing from Mendeley preserving the tags, notes, PDFs, annotations, forder structures as well as added date is seemingly a much requested feature, and due to Mendeley's buggy export, could only be resolved from their API. Hope @adamsmith could organize this project at Github so people who are willing to help could contribute with ease.
  • adamsmith
    there's really no reason I should organize this -- I don't have any starting code and won't, in the foreseeable future, do any work on it. People should feel free to either start a separate repository for an add-on or talk on zotero-dev on how such a tool should look.
  • hyiltiz
    Importing from Mendeley preserving the tags, notes, PDFs, annotations, forder structures as well as added date is seemingly a much requested feature, and due to Mendeley's buggy export, could only be resolved from their API.

    I guess a Import Wizard could be implemented (along with the Import feature) in the gear, so that:

    1. In step one, we could select the system we are migrating from;

    2. In step two, we are provided with two methods: a) manual export then import or b) auto-migrate. Could be selected using a radio button.

    i) In manual export then import, we are told based on that system what is the recommended way to export our database and to do that manually;
    In auto-migrate, we are provided with an interface where we could locate the filesystem folder where the previous database could be found, such as the Mendeley database folder. Go to Step four after finish.

    ii) In step three (when not using the auto import in the second step in the wizard but rather using manually export then import), provide an locate interface for the exported file(s) generated manually during step two. Go to Step four after finish.

    3. Step four: everything will be automatically imported to Zotero under a separate library (so that users could organize that later manually if necessary) and this is the end of the wizard.

    It seems something like this would be quite helpful, but since I am not quite familiar with JS, I cannot implement this myself. Any ideas on how could this be started, or anyone interested in this?
  • rdiaz02
    Not exactly as hyiltiz wants but this might help:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/26453/moving-from-mendeley-to-zotero/#Comment_229588
  • dstillman
    Just to update this old thread, Zotero now includes a direct Mendeley importer.

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