Reference Manager RefID batch import

JimBee
Folks- like some other posts, I am evaluating migrating to Zotero from orphaned Reference Manager (14,000+ refs in my case). A trial run worked well. However, one field, RefID, is not picked up. It is a short unique acquisition number that I find very handy to have, plus it links to every paper reprint. Can I somehow assign RefID to a different Zotero field to have it included with a Zotero database?

thanks, jim
  • noksagt
    What file format did you export to? Is the RefID in the export file? Are you able to customize the export?
  • JimBee
    I had tried exporting from Reference Manager 12 as a RIS file, but Zotero did not recognize it. But Zotero did recognize and correctly import the xml file. I've pasted on of the entries below. The tag "ID" is the one I would like imported to Zotero. I don't have a use for the tag "call number", so I could globally search and replace "ID" in the export file with whatever acronym Zotero uses for "call number" so it would pick it up. Or probably less likely, I could somehow specify to Zotero that I want a new field "RefID" to be imported. Advice? yours, jim

    TY - JOUR
    ID - 10280
    T1 - The effect of inflorescence size on male fitness: Experimental tests in the andromonoecious lily, Zigadenus paniculatus
    A1 - Emms,S.
    A1 - Stratton,K.
    A1 - Snow,A.
    Y1 - 1997///
    KW - SIZE
    KW - ZIGADENUS
    RP - NOT IN FILE
    SP - 1481
    EP - 1489
    JA - Evolution
    VL - 51
    ER -


  • noksagt
    'CN' is mapped to Zotero's Call Number.
  • adamsmith
    edited June 11, 2018
    Don't just replace ID, though -- too many false positives, so you'd want to run

    ID - --> CN -

    or, even better, with a regex capable text editor (or sed)

    ^ID\s- --> CN -

    edit -- and as you suspect, you can't create custom fields in Zotero, at least not at this time.
  • JimBee
    You were right, of course, just replacing "ID" yielded some odd word changes too, but it was easy to make it more specific to change the RefID label in RefMngr's export text file to the one for Call Numbers (CN) in Zotero, which Zotero then faithfully picked up. So Zotero, it is also picking umlauts and other diacritical marks in authors' names. Excellent!
Sign In or Register to comment.