Migrating database from Word 2007 into Zotero

brazuca
Hi,

I'm trying to get some coworkers to use Zotero but I'm running into a problem with those who have built databases using Word's 2007 built-in biblio manager.

I don't use it myself, but I've been told that Zotero has a hard time importing the .xml that Word generates. Is there a solution/method for migrating out of Word and into Zotero?

And what is the current state of integration? Should I recommend that they use this now for work or should they wait until the new engine is done?
  • a_viol
    Hi,

    No solution out there? I'm facing the same problem. Started my diploma thesis with Word 2007 and recognised too late that it's not adequate. Now I got about 50 sources which I don't want to migrate manually. Any ideas? Zotero won't import the sources.xml. I've already tried to.

    Cheers

    Andi
  • noksagt
    I doubt that MS uses the XML formats that are supported by Zotero. Can you export to other formats? Or use a plugin like:
    http://ragrawal.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/releasing-reference-manager-beta-for-word-2007/
  • brazuca
    I was about to reference that link that noksagt posted. See if it works. I will test it soon also.
  • a_viol
    I just installed the plugin. Had to install the interop package as well to get it working. You can download it from here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=59DAEBAA-BED4-4282-A28C-B864D8BFA513&displaylang=en
    The plugin looks nice but the export function is not really working. You can get the author, title and year of your refs but the rest will be missing... unfortunately. Think i'll have to do it manually. I found some converters for the xml file but they work in the wrong direction. You can convert a bibtex file for word 2007, but not the other way around.
  • iboris
    Really need an answer for this. I have Word 2010 and a source library that I have been carrying for over 5 years (over a hundred citations easily). I will not start using Zotero if there is not a surefire, dead simple way to import my Word source database.

    Anything new since the last comment in 2009?

    I'm thinking of using the Alpha Stand-Alone version. If this is only possible with the browser integrated version than so be it.
  • adamsmith
    iboris:
    no, nothing new, you'll have to try that out yourself. You'll need to find a way to get your Word sources exported to RIS or BibTeX (.ris or .bib file extension), then Zotero can import them just fine.
    For what it's worth, I think you'd be ill advised to keep on using a database product without a standardized export format - at some point it's best to cut your losses - but that's up to you.
  • iboris
    Too bad, If I install and export to Bibtex or RIS I'll probably stop there. Well, good luck with your project; interesting idea and a dearly needed service
  • dstillman
    edited February 8, 2011
    BibTeX and RIS aren't programs to install. They're standard export formats supported by most reference managers. (Well, BibTeX is a program too, but in this context it's just a format.)
  • iboris
    oh, okay, well I guess I'll continue looking for a citation manager that can integrate my Word citations, offer basic citation models and legal citation models.
  • ajlyon
    Zotero is probably your best bet for legal citation, since making legal citation work properly is one of the core goals of the law professor who is the lead developer of the citation engine for Zotero.

    The problem here is just that Word's bibliographic database was apparently designed with no way to get your data out of it. That's completely unacceptable, but there's not much we can do here at Zotero to help you.
  • qtravis
    I had a very similar problem but found a pretty good method to do it. This (awesome) guy Makino Takaki made a perl program (makebib.perl) that translates APA format references into BiBTeX. You can run in right from his website here: http://www.snowelm.com/~t/doc/tips/makebib.en.html.

    So the steps for transferring your Word references to Zotero are:

    1. Open a Word document that has the references in it;
    2. Insert a bibliography from the references ribbon in APA format;
    3. Select the bibliography text and search and replace ^p with ^p^p (this puts a space between each entry);
    4. Copy the bibliography text, insert it into the text box on Takaki's excellent site, and press the 'Make BiBTeX Source!' button;
    5. Select the results (the new BiBTeX code) and copy;
    6. Open Zotero and press File->Import from Clipboard.

    I used it on all of mine and it worked really well. My only real problem was that it struggles with one corporate authors (I think because there's no comma separating first and last names) but this was pretty easy to fix. Anyway, it probably saved me 4+ hours.

    Hope that helps!
  • timtak
    I have been using Memento by Ragrawal:
    http://ragrawal.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/releasing-reference-manager-beta-for-word-2007/
    I like it. Realizing the joys of using a citation manager (and having imported quite a lot of citations) I think perhaps I should move to one that is
    1) Supported
    2) Allows notes (but then Memento online allows notes)
    3) Can export (as mentioned above, Ragrawal's Memento plugin only exports author, year and title.

    At the same time, Word is something of a standard, quite a major standard, so while I appreciate the criticism of Word which lacks export, I am scared to move to a system that lacks import of the major standard which is word. Students are using Word too. Since Word is so ubiquitous, and it started to provide citation management since 2007, there must be millions of Word XML citations out there.

    Is a system without export (Word+Memento) a better bet than a system without import from that which I guess will soon be the most used bibliographic format in the world (ms word xml)?

    My guess is that the MS word citation manager will gradually get better, but with a customer base in the billions, will they want to build exporters?

    My guess is that one day Zotero will import from Word XML.

    Are there any plans or movement in that direction since last year?
  • adamsmith
    edited March 6, 2012
    There aren't any plans, no, and I think you're completely mistaken about Word being any type of standard in terms of reference management. If there is a standard for reference management it's either Endnote or BibTex and Zotero imports from both.
    In almost 15 years in academia I have never met anyone who works with Word's bibliography feature. Nor have I ever seen a University library offer workshops or support for Word XML bibliographic management.

    That said, if you really think Word is that important, bibutils provides limited support.
    http://sourceforge.net/p/bibutils/home/Bibutils/

    Edit: But in the unlikely case that I'm wrong and in 2 years Word has miraculously become a major player in the reference management market, someone will most likely write a Word XML import/export translator. It's about half a days work.
  • timtak
    Thank you very much for your super quick response.

    I find that Memento does export to Bibtex. The journal name is not shown on the export screen as it should be, but the entries are exported in full to the Bibtex file.

    So all those above that are using MS Word and want to move to Zotero, you can by using Memento by Ritesh Agrawal (not "Ragrawal"), to export to bibtex, available from the link above.

    I can move to Zotero when it need its functionality. I would like to be able to write notes, but I can do that on the Memento site too though a bit less conveniently. I would like to bundle a citation with a file (or link) which Zotero seems to be able to do. I find Zotero rather confusing still. I will ask elsewhere how to use it.

    I first started looking at Zotero about 4 years ago, and I guess I will be looking back again in the next couple of years and I will see how Zotero-Word interactions are proceeding. I think we are going to see a miracle. Do you take bets?!
  • branden59
    As a novice with both reference managers in general and Zotero in particular, I'm not sure whether the discussion above addresses my situation. I have hundreds, possibly thousands, of references in Word documents (but not using their reference function) and PDFs that I'd like to be able to import into Zotero without having to enter them manually into the citation fields. Is there any hope?
  • adamsmith
    the discussion doesn't apply to you, no. There isn't much hope, all of it is summarized here http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/importing_formatted_bibliographies and afaik results have been decidedly mixed.
    There are some other tools not listed on that site, but none work all that great. If all your references are in one specific citation style, some tools perform better.
    If you have some spare money you could contract this out via mechanical turk.
  • Simon
    However, you can retrieve metadata for the PDFs relatively easily: http://www.zotero.org/support/retrieve_pdf_metadata
  • adamsmith
    but to be clear - that's the reference for the pdf itself - not the references cited in it.
  • adamsmith
    for future reference - someone took the trouble to thoroughly document Word's XML here: http://mahbub.wordpress.com/2007/03/24/details-of-microsoft-office-2007-bibliographic-format-compared-to-bibtex/
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