Automatic correction: spaces in Zotero import

When I import from a library catalogue in my browser (Firefox) to Zotero, Zotero automatically deletes the space before a ":" within in a title, e.g. "Test : test" is imported as "Test: test".

Would it be possible to elaborate this very helpful automatism? It should not only apply to the title but also to Publication, Series, Place and Publisher. It should not only apply to the ":" but also to ";", "," and ".".

Especially if you work with old books (printed before 1700) this is really annoying to take care of manually as librarians (for the catalogues) tended to use way to many spaces (originating form a habit before the digital catalogues). Yet, Zotero needs clean data, otherwise there are many typographical errors in the bibliograpy (B.t.w. these typographical errors also occur with some specific characters, too, especially from the Arabic, Hebrew and Greek alphabet...)

version => 5.0.52, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 5.1, locale => de, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.52, extensions => Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.14.SA.5.0.52, extension), Zotero Word for Windows Integration (5.0.8.SA.5.0.52, extension), Shockwave Flash (21.0.0.182, plugin, disabled)
  • Do you have a couple of examples? Generally this sounds like we should do this, but I want to look at this closely before making sweeping changes.
  • Check out this title: "Perpendiculorum inconstantia : ab Alexandro Calignono ... excogitata ; a Petro Gassendi bona fide tradita, & pulchro commentario exornata"

    http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/25263750

    There are other examples for Series, Publisher, Place etc.
  • edited July 11, 2018
    Several old and recent library cataloging standards recommend this but it certainly is wrong for most style guides. (There is a technical term for the space-before-punctuation but I cannot recall the jargon.) Spaces before colons are universal, for example, in the US National Library of Medicine catalog for journal names that include them. Sometimes also for semicolons.

    I do my best to remove these before-colon spaces in the journal and book titles in SafetyLit. There has been much discussion among catalog experts about whether exports for the purpose of citation should contain the spaces. I took the leap for my database because most everyone who exports the metadata does so to cite the record. I hope that Zotero will do the same. This would relieve Zotero users of some of the hand-editing tasks. I'm one more Zotero user who would be pleased if this space were automatically removed.
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