From Endnote to Zotero - transfring comments/annotations

Justine Paris
Hi all,

When I transfer a reference from endnote to zotero, all my personal comments (ex: "read", "to read", "was very useful", etc.) which I added manually in the "research notes" column of Endnote are missing on zotero once the reference is transfered. Any idea what could be done to keep all my personal comments?

Thanks a lot in advance,
Justine.
  • adamsmith
    which format did you use? RIS or Endnote XML?
    Either way, could you open the export file with a text editor (notepad, TextEdit), find a record that you know had such notes, and then see if they're in that record? If so, post it here. In RIS, that's pretty easy -- it just goes from TY - to ER -. In Endnote XML it's a little trickier to find beginning and end; let us know if you need help.
  • Gurdas_Sandhu
    @adamsmith In general, what is the recommended format if the goal is to bring EndNote items into Zotero?
  • adamsmith
    I'd generally go with Endnote XML, but it's also seen less testing, so things may not be quite correct.
  • Justine Paris
    Hi AdamSmith,

    Thank you for your interest in my problem. I have just tried both RIS and Endnote Export formats - no difference; my personal notes in the Endnote record are missing in the Zotero record.
    When I open the export file for one record which has 2 types of manual / personal notes, these notes show up - i.e. "autour de la p.149" and "***" below, but they don't show up in the Zotero record:

    Here is the RIS export txt data:
    TY - BOOK
    AU - Aitchison, J.
    CY - Oxford: Basil Blackwell
    LB - autour de la p.149
    PY - 1987
    RN - ***
    ST - Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon
    TI - Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon
    ID - 133
    ER -

    Here is the Endnote Export export txt data:
    %0 Book
    %A Aitchison, J.
    %D 1987
    %T Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon
    %C Oxford: Basil Blackwell
    %! Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon
    %F autour de la p.149
    %< ***
  • adamsmith
    The *** should show up in a note attached to the item -- are you sure they don't?
    Beyond that, how would you want this to show up in Zotero? You can tweak the RIS (easier) or the Zotero import script (harder) to make this work.
  • Justine Paris
    I cannot see the "***" anywhere in the imported record in Zorero, unfortunately. For now, for all the new records that I've entered manually in Zotero, I've added all my personal comments in the field called "extra" (I didn't know where else to enter them to make sure they'd be more visible than "tags").
  • adamsmith
    are you sure? When I import the RIS above, it attaches a note with those three stars to the item (check either in the "Note" tab or expand the item by clicking the arrow to its left). Since the "RN" field is for "Research Notes," that'd seem like the most appropriate place.
  • Justine Paris
    Actually, the "***" indeed show up in the notes (sorry, I'm new to Zotero, I didn't know what you meant exactly). Now what if I want those to show up in the "extra" field? The other type of personal comment ("autour de la p.149"), doesn't show up anywhere in Zotero.

    In trying to export another record from Endnote to Zotero, I ran into another problem - the date with a letter (i.e. "2008a") was transformed as "0000 a Jan", even in the txt export file (RIS):
    TY - JOUR
    AB - In this paper we address the aspects that will determine the planning of a conceptual syllabus for teaching metaphors and idioms in a foreign language context. We argue that the theoretical background of the cognitive linguistic enterprise alters slightly the normal processes of developing learning materials. Hence, a series of preliminary and theoretical/practical concerns are introduced in order to answer the question of how a conceptual syllabus should look like.
    AD - [Andreou, Georgia; Galantomos, Loannis] Univ Thessaly, Dept Special Educ, Volos, Greece.
    Andreou, G (reprint author), Univ Thessaly, Dept Special Educ, Volos, Greece.
    AN - WOS:000261203200005
    AU - Andreou, G.
    AU - Galantomos, I.
    DA - Jan
    J2 - Porta Linguarum
    KW - conceptual syllabus
    teaching metaphors
    cognitive linguistics
    competence
    L1 - internal-pdf://ANDREOU et al 2008 Designing a conceptual syllabus for teaching-2497694977/ANDREOU et al 2008 Designing a conceptual syllabus for teaching.pdf
    LA - English
    LB - choses à prendre en consideration when designing a conceptual lesson plan
    N1 - ISI Document Delivery No.: 376SL
    Times Cited: 0
    Cited Reference Count: 45
    Andreou, Georgia Galantomos, Loannis
    Univ granada
    Granada
    PY - 2008a
    RN - READ
    SN - 1697-7467
    SP - 69-77
    ST - Designing a conceptual syllabus for teaching metaphors and idioms in a foreign language context
    T2 - Porta Linguarum
    TI - Designing a conceptual syllabus for teaching metaphors and idioms in a foreign language context
    UR - ://WOS:000261203200005
    VL - 9
    ID - 248
    ER -


    Also, when a PDF was indexed to a record in Endnote, it doesn't seem to be transfered along to Zotero.

    Thanks in advance,
    Justine.
  • adamsmith
    I wonder if it wouldn't be worth the trouble to convert the *** into a colored tag, even though you'd have to that manually. https://zotero-manual.github.io/zotero-manual/tags#colored-tags This doesn't seem like something you'd want in a substantive field.

    For anything you want in the "Extra" field in Zotero, change the RIS label to M2. You can either do this using search&replace in a text editor or (I believe) by modifying Endnote's output filter. Note that you can only have one M2 field per entry (otherwise Zotero will, I believe, just import whatever is in the 2nd one).
    The contents of RN or N1 are imported as notes. LB isn't imported at all.

    For file attachments, see the 3rd bullet point here: make sure that you're opening the file from the right location
    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/importing_records_from_endnote#exporting_endnote_records
  • Justine Paris
    What do you mean by "RIS label"?

    Thanks so much for all your replies.
  • adamsmith
    the RIS Label is the two letter hyphen combination in the RIS export at the beginning of every field. E.g. LB - in front of your notes, RN - in front of those three stars, etc.
  • Justine Paris
    I see, thank you so much!!

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