Questions about the migration from Citavi 5 to zotero concerning todos and biblatex-keys

SebKri
Hi there!

I'm quite new to zotero because I worked with citavi before. But now I like to switch and
I used these instructions https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/import-from-citavi#citavi_xml_format to import my citavi-data into zotero.

Everything worked fine but I had some todos ("Aufgaben") in my citavi-project. They were indeed imported to zotero but without any connection to the publications they were linked to before. E.g. I got 47 note-entries with "read" (yes, I'm a bit behind with my work), which are contain only the word "read" and the tag "#todo". Is that how it's supposed to work? I would have expected that these entries are somehow linked to my publication-entries.

My second question is about importing existing biblatex-keys from citavi to zotero. I used citavi to export to biblatex and therefore let citavi create the biblatex-keys. But unfortunately theses keys do not seem to appear in zotero now. Are they just dropped? Or is there some way to import these keys to zotero?

Best regards
Seb
  • adamsmith
    I'm afraid you'll have to pick -- you can get the full Citavi import but without biblatex keys or you can use Citavi's biblatex export and import that in Zotero and get the biblatex keys (when using the Better Bib(La)TeX extension, but you'll lose everything that's not in the biblatex.

    Not sure about the todo lists -- You may well be hitting the limits of translatability between Zotero and Citavi there, since Zotero isn't really designed as a full workflow tool to the extent Citavi is.
  • emilianoeheyns
    How does Citavi generate the keys? If they're not part of the export, maybe they're not in the Citavi DB; if Citavi generates them when it exports bibtex, maybe BBT can generate keys that are the same.
  • SebKri
    edited April 30, 2019
    Hi again! Thanks for your fast replies!

    @emilianoeheyns: As far as I understand, citavi saves the bibtex-keys in it's database. Normally they are generated when you create a new entry but you can generate them by "hand", too. So they should be stored somewhere. The problem with recreating the keys would be, that citavi generates keys in this pattern: "[authorname]+[dot]+[year]+optional [lower case letter]". The problem would probably arise with this optional letter part. The letter is appended if there are several publications from one author in the same year. I'm not sure, if these letters would remain the same within zotero. It seems like BBT is much more concise about the keys it creates and does not allow to mess around too much.

    So I probably should use the exported .bib-file for my migration to zotero as @adamsmith proposed and put all my abstracts into it. As I will apparently lose my todos and so on anyway, I think the difference between citavi-backup-import and bib-file-import wouldn't be too big for me. But thinking about it: I would also loose all my tags and links to attachments... That's bad. Maybe I will just transfer my old bibtex-keys by hand or I recreate them in zotero with BBT and correct them by hand. Would that be possible? It seems that I'm not able to directly interfere with the BBT-keys.
    [edit:] Okay, I found it: you can just place "biblatexcitekey[Text.1978]" in the Extra-field in zotero and BBT takes your own fixed key - that's great! (see: https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/citation-keys/)

    But just out of curiosity: In the link above (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/import-from-citavi) it says "This format will import the item bibliographic metadata, as well as quotations, tasks, attachments, etc." So it actually should be possible to import todos (tasks) from citavi to zotero, shouldn't it?

  • emilianoeheyns
    In BBT you'd use the pattern [auth].[year]; the optional lower case letter is automatic. You could just have BBT generate keys, pin them, and then correct the pinned keys where required. BBT allows for a lot of messing around with the key. For fixing the keys (or "pinning" as BBT calls it, I would recommend using Citation Key: Text.1978, BBT understands this but if you use the Zotero Overleaf integration, those will also be picked up. biblatexcitekey is still supported in BBT in the sense that it will read it but it's considered deprecated otherwise; if you pin a key using BBT, it will use the Citation Key: format.

    Does the Citavi export (be it in bibtex or XML) not have tags/links to attachments?
  • SebKri
    Ah, thanks again!

    I didn't know about pinning keys but it seems a good way to do the work.
    And it's very good to know that biblatexcitekey is deprecated.

    Yes, with the attachments everything is okay. Sorry for the confusion. Above, I was just thinking about using a .bib-file for migration, which now does not seem to be a good idea anymore. I will stick with the xml (or ctv5 from citavi) and just recreate and correct the bibtex-keys. If you follow the steps in the "import-from-citavi" explanation and copy all the files to the right place in advance, it works fine with the attachments.

    Still not sure about the tasks / todos though... Maybe I'll just leave them in citavi.
  • preiaen
    Almost 5 years later I have the same issue with citavi to zotero import. I need the bibtex keys to be unchanged, or I cannot migrate, for I have used them already and my library is too big to be fixed by hand. Since the citavi project file is XML and there is a tag I wonder why it cannot be imported the same way a key from a .bib file would be imported, given that better bibtex is installed, which it is in my case. Is that a better bibtex issue or something with the import script from zotero?
  • emilianoeheyns
    In what tag is the bibtex key in the XML?
  • preiaen
    edited January 3, 2025
    e.g. < BibTeXKey >Mandich.2019< /BibTeXKey >

    if working with xpath:

    /CitaviExchangeData/References/Reference/BibTeXKey
  • preiaen
    edited January 3, 2025
    I edited the first comment see above
  • preiaen
    Assuming that only those fields included in the test project within the test files of the zotero source code, this tag is currently ignored by the import script.
  • emilianoeheyns
    can you get me a complete XML file with a few references? It may be a very simple mod to the existing Citavi exporter to get this done, but I have no sample data.
  • preiaen
    I adjusted the test project

    https://github.com/preiaen/zotero_citavi
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited January 4, 2025
    I'll submit a PR to Zotero, but in the interim you can drop this into your zotero translators folder, restart zotero, and import your ctv6 file.
  • preiaen
    You are a true legend! Absolutly fantastic. Import worked flawlessly, a quick diff between the bibtex exports from citavi and zotero looks fine as well. Big thank you for your rapid response and solution for that issue.
  • emilianoeheyns
    The change has also been accepted in Zotero so this will show up for others now too, and it won't be overwritten by future updates.
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