Import from MS Access

Gracile
I'd like to import data from a MS Access 2002 file (.mdb). I was thinking convert it into an html and then write a zotero-translator... but the html generated by Access does not contain any specific XPath to rely on. Should I convert the .mdb file to sql first, then generate a page and scrape the data?

I'm not very comfortable with Access; I've used it almost as a spreadsheet (my .mdb is a sole table - ugh, I know my use of Access is/was not orthodox...)

My table contains legal data (i.e: court decisions that I'd like to import as legal_case in zotero)

Thanks!
  • bdarcus
    If it's just a single table, why not export to CSV, and then convert that into some form that Zotero can handle?
  • Gracile
    edited December 4, 2009
    I first thought to do that... but I read many threads about csv-importing from which I (mistakenly) concluded that it was impossible/difficult to do.
    So, I've to export my table to an .xls file? Then?
    [edit: I wrote .xls since I don't know how to obtain a csv (which I didn't know two hours ago) and I assume xls and csv are alike]

    (I'm using Zotero 1.0.10, win xp)

    Thanks!
  • Gracile
    I've converted my .mdb into an .xls, and then into a .cvs (since in MS Access 2002, it does not seem possible to convert directly a .mdb into a .cvs)
    I don't really know what to do now with this file...
  • adamsmith
    yeah - I'm not sure what Bruce was referring to, either. There is no import from csv function. If you have access to Endnote you might try going that way - Endnote has somewhat functional import from csv and then you could export to RIS. Otherwise I don't know, but I don't know anything about access either.
  • Gracile
    edited December 5, 2009
    I don't have Endnote [I'm loyal to Zotero ;-) ]...
    According to Frank Bennett (see: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4638/importing-excel-sheets-into-zotero/ ), it might be possible « to write a custom translator in Javascript for your CSV data ».

    I assume I've first to convert my csv into an HTML table. I've found a code on the web (http://www.codewalkers.com/c/a/File-Manipulation-Code/Simple-CSV-to-HTML-Table/ )... but it does not work. Nor this online converter: http://area23.brightbyte.de/csv2wp.php .
    Any idea?
  • adamsmith
    that wouldn't help, either - Zotero doesn't import html. Javascript should be able to read csv - but you'd pretty much have to write it from scratch because it'd be quite different from any other format that's currently translated.
  • Gracile
    I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean by "have to write it from scratch ". I thought I could write a translator "as usual"... No?
  • adamsmith
    sure - but I don't think any of the existing translators are going to be very close, so you can't just modify one.
  • bdarcus
    I was just a) assuming that Access can export to CSV, and b) that it's easy to convert CSV to some other format (RIS, etc.) that Zotero can understand. That does require some technical skills, obviously.
  • brodie.austin
    edited January 19, 2010
    I don't know if it's possible with a non-normalized table, but I created a report in Access that formats the information as BibTex, export the report as plain text, rename it as .bib, then import that into Zotero. It seems to work fairly well, once a few formatting bugs are ironed out. I was working with pretty straightforward bibliographic information, though.

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