Moving Between Reference Managers
Hello -
What happens to existing documents, in moving between reference managers?
If one migrates from/to Zotero and a different reference manager, there is good documentation on how to export/import the databases.
(For example: https://www.zotero.org/support/getting_stuff_into_your_library#importing_from_other_tools)
However, what becomes of existing documents, with citations using a given reference manager?
Is there a way to convert such documents to use the new reference manager (i.e. such that the documents' citations and bibliography would then be constructed via the new reference manager)?
I assume there is no (easy) way to do this, and the only solution would entail manually deleting each old citation (built from the old reference manager) and creating a new citation (built from the new reference manager).
In that case, can citations built via different reference managers co-exist in the same document happily?
Thank you for any guidance.
What happens to existing documents, in moving between reference managers?
If one migrates from/to Zotero and a different reference manager, there is good documentation on how to export/import the databases.
(For example: https://www.zotero.org/support/getting_stuff_into_your_library#importing_from_other_tools)
However, what becomes of existing documents, with citations using a given reference manager?
Is there a way to convert such documents to use the new reference manager (i.e. such that the documents' citations and bibliography would then be constructed via the new reference manager)?
I assume there is no (easy) way to do this, and the only solution would entail manually deleting each old citation (built from the old reference manager) and creating a new citation (built from the new reference manager).
In that case, can citations built via different reference managers co-exist in the same document happily?
Thank you for any guidance.
The one exception is Mendeley and Zotero, which both, I believe, recognize each others citations (though they're not linked to database entries). This is not extensively tested, though, so while it is good enough for migration, I wouldn't, say, want to rely on it for collaboration.
So is there no way to convert, say, Mendeley citations to Zotero citations (or vice versa) so that the resulting document has only the single type?
So choice of a reference manager is quite a commitment then!
A bit of a marriage, it seems.
(This matters to me not just because of works in progress, such as my never-ending dissertation, but because I also keep documents on topical themes with quotes and notes from various sources, and thus with citations; I also outline important texts in Word documents, and similarly put quotes and notes there with citations. These documents I can foresee using for many years, even for life, or at least as long as I have enough of a mind to understand the contents thereof).
As adamsmith said, though, you wouldn't want to collaborate this way between Mendeley and Zotero as everytime you switch reference managers they will "re-adjust" the citations in the document to better fit each program's needs.