RIS Import failed "The format of the selected file is not supported"

Brenne Architekten
Dear Zotero-Forum,

we´re new here and want to use Zotero for our office library.
We tried to import our old Database (~3.500 titles) in RIS-format from "Lidos" (Vers. 7.1) into Zotero but the import failed with the notice "The format of the selected file is not supported".

Do we have to think about something during exporting/ importing or are there other settings to do? Hope somebody can help us!
Many thanks in advance!
Best
Anne
  • karnesky
    This most often occurs because the export is not what it claims to be. Inspect it in a text editor.

    If you can't make sense of it, split the RIS file into smaller chunks and then post a small one that fails to be imported.
  • bwiernik
    Can you post a sample item from the RIS File here?
  • Brenne Architekten
    right, it's a .txt file (2209 KB). We now separated one record (1KB) out of the whole file, but the import with that smaller one into Zotero failed again.
    We can't add that txt-file to our comment, so we just copied the text out of it below
    ----------
    IDDK b 1986-1
    N11
    AU
    A2
    A2
    A2
    T1Erhalten historisch bedeutsamer Bauwerke: Baugefüge, Konstruktionen, Werkstoffe
    T28. Kolloquium des SFB 315: Bauaufnahme - Bestandsuntersuchung und Dokumentation historischer Bauwerke
    T3
    T3
    N1
    Y1
    VL
    SP
    EP
    A1Universität Karlsruhe, Sonderforschungsbereich 315
    AI
    A2
    IS
    JAArbeitshefte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 315 " Erhalten historisch bedeutsamer Bauwerke", Heft 7
    A7
    T1
    CYKarlruhe
    PB
    N2
    PY1986
    N2
    N2
    AD
    SN
    SN
    N2
    N2
    N1
    N2
    N2
    N2
    TY
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    AU
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N2
    N204.01.2013 05.02.1999
    N203.08.2000
    ---------

    hope this is how it's meant to be?

    thanks for supporting!
  • bwiernik
    edited October 12, 2017
    Okay, that RIS is not properly formatted. The RIS spec indicates that all records must start with “TY - “ (type) and end with “ER - “ (end record). Each line must start with the two letter field label, then a space, then a hyphen, then another space, then the field contents.

    See the examples here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIS_(file_format)

    Zotero can’t import an improperly formatted RIS record like this one.
  • adamsmith
    (Zotero tries its best -- e.g. it can handle the absence of ER - elements to some extent -- but the above is cojmpletely broken. There's no way to make sense of that)
  • Brenne Architekten
    adding "TY - " "ER - " and 'tab hyphen tab' between tag and meaning worked! so happy, thanks a lot!!!
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