Transfering Zorero citation to sources in Word 2007

swinster
Hi,

I use Word 2007 and it much improved references section, adding sources and citations then automatic creation of a Bibliography. Will citations and sources captured using Zotero be able to be transferred into Word 2007 native references master list so that all the standard Word features.

These lists are saved in XML format as so should be able to be import into. I also found some info on MSDN with regard to programmaticly adding Sources and Citations.

I must admit that I have only just come across Zotero so I don't know it full capabilities, however, it seems as though this is lacking.

Chris
  • Tjowens
    Currently Zotero does not interface with Word 2007's reference management system. However, Zotero's Word plugin allows you to easily utilize references stored in your Zotero collection in Word documents.
  • swinster
    Many thanks, but I think it would be a really good move to add this functionality into future development.
  • bdarcus
    The devil is in the details, though, and there are a lot of problems with Word's built-in support. As just one example, it can't correctly format author-date styles like APA. It also cannot switch between footnote and in-text styles like Zotero can. Finally, writing new styles is a much bigger PITA than it is for Zotero.

    So ideally, Zotero and other third-party apps would be able to use the Word APIs, but override the formatting system (or MS would have to improve that system). But I think to do that, MS will probably have to do some work to improve the situation for third-party apps.
  • swinster
    I get what you say about style, the XLS transforms are very heavy going. I lot of people (myself included) would like to the the Harvard Referencing system, which simply isn't included in Word 2007 out of the box. I have found http://www.codeplex.com/bibliography/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15852 which at least give some downloadable XLS files that allow for Harvard Referencing as implemented by Leeds and Anglia Ruskin Universities.

    I haven't looked fully at the BibWord application, but it would appear that this get round the some of the difficulties of creating an XLS template for Word 2007 reference styles.
  • mkhabbaz
    edited September 13, 2008
    it seems the only software that interface with office 2007 (on mac) is Papers.. but then again, it sends only Journal articles and does not support books, or other entries. It actually export to the sources.xml file.
  • swinster
    Well, its a start. As the use of sources.xml is open, I can't see why developers won't use it
  • bdarcus
    @swinster: as I suggested above, for one thing, supporting Word's approach would be a step backwards in many ways, and I don't think MS has made it terribly easy for third-party developers (yet).
  • swinster
    Personally I can't see that and would think that a lot of user would like to be able to integrate with the Word 2007 features. I for one think they work very well.
  • masood_mj
    There is a bibutils and bibtex2word2007 utility that may be useful for this purpose. But I don't know any way to convert in the reverse direction. Does anyone know a way to convert word 2007 sources.xml format to bibtex or any other familiar format?!!
  • ftr
    I collaborate on a publication which a researcher who uses the Word 2007 bibliography tool and already collected a large citation base. Now we work on the same text, she with her tool and me with zotero.

    Which way can we go to integrate the data bases, either in exporting Zotero's into Word's or the other way round ? I also have an EndNote 8 licence which I no longer use but could EndNote provide a workaround ?

    BTW We can't wait for an eventual future code development because we have to finish the text in 2 weeks time. So the question is about a quick and dirty way, maybe with manual corrections, but in time. Both of us are no code developers.

    Or is there currently no way to achieve this ?
  • SimonCropper
    My solution would be for one of you to be the main person adding references - that persons responsibility would be to add all the references to you citation software and insert into the document. Drafts of the document would be sent to your colleague. If you are using Zotero send the draft as a PDF so the citations in the text are fixed and will not interact with your colleague's program. If your colleague is using Endnote they can 'remove the fieldcodes' (which hard wires the citations and bibliography) before sending to you. References can be shared through a common format like RIS.

    So for the interim the following seems the best option...
    1. Export your smaller reference set to RIS and send it to your colleague and have her import them into her reference manager. Get her to send the bibliography back so you can proof.
    2. From now on have her edit the text, insert all the reference citations and format the bibliography using her reference manager (which I am presuming is EndNote).
    3. Have her send you drafts of the document with field codes removed (Endnote) or if this option is not available in her reference manager as a PDF. If she does not own program that can create PDFs get her to install PDFCreater from SourceForge.net, this program sets itself up as a printer but creates PDFs.
    4. You make edits in the Word file or comments in the PDF using a PDF Reader and send them back to her for correction.

    In future collaborations where you have more time to prepare get your colleagues to migrate to Zotero. It has as much, if not more , functionality than most of the other reference managers and is free. Migration from other packages can be troublesome but worth the effort.
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