@adam.smith: I am in the Humanities (Archaeology) and LaTeX is surely going to isolate me more or less. All editors in the Journals I know of request the delivered papers to be in .DOC (not even .ODT) format!
My fear is, that I am going to invest (probably a lot of) time to learn LaTeX/BibTeX and then at the end I shall have to convert everything I want to publish into WORD again. As I've heard this is not easy to do.
But again, I think I have to give it a try.
I read this thread as it was developing and just re-read it, but maybe I missed something.
If I had to make multiple bibliographies based on ITEM TYPE right now first I'd:
1. Put all my references that I've cited into a collection. Then,
2. Sort that list by "type"
3. Select all items in each type
4. Right click/create bibliography from selected items
5. Copy to clipboard
6. Paste into appropriate place in document.
If i had to make multiple bibliographies based in some other reasoning, I'd still
1. Put all my references that I've cited into a collection, then
2. Create sub collections for each "other reasoning",
3. Drag items from the whole collection to the appropriate sub collection (no matter what, you need to make a decision on each item one at a time...even if you could do it as you cite).
4. Select all items in the first sub collection and copy bibliography to clipboard as above.
@arggem: I think that's what fbennett meant by hand-editing above. This approach works fine with a limited bibliography but has several drawbacks when working with an extensive one: 1. As you go along with your research you keep on adding (or deleting) entries in your various subcollections. This means that you constantly have to copy/paste your subcollections to your document. 2. It is error-prone, because when you add citations into your foot/endnotes or your text then you cannot be sure if you also have them in your bibliography. 3. You cannot do something like: XII. 12th bibliography section 132. author1, book, 2002 133. author2, book, 2000
XIII. 13th bibl. section 134. author3, book, 2001 ...
(the citation for the above example would be e.g. 132: author1, 2002)
I mean you could do it manually, but it would make you crazy to constantly change the numbers of the entries of your bibliography. But that's exactly the beauty of the programs like Zotero, because they do all this dirty work.
I am in the Humanities (Archaeology) and LaTeX is surely going to isolate me more or less. All editors in the Journals I know of request the delivered papers to be in .DOC (not even .ODT) format! My fear is, that I am going to invest (probably a lot of) time to learn LaTeX/BibTeX and then at the end I shall have to convert everything I want to publish into WORD again. As I've heard this is not easy to do. But again, I think I have to give it a try.
My opinion: don't bother. The reasons you outline are exactly why not to use LaTeX/BibTeX.
Let's go back to your first post, where you said:
I am currently writing a handbook for students and the bibliography is very extensive and has to be divided in subjects.
When you say "writing ... for students" what do you mean? Is this to be submitted to a publisher, or are you distributing it more informally? If the latter, in what form?
When you say "writing ... for students" what do you mean? Is this to be submitted to a publisher, or are you distributing it more informally? If the latter, in what form?
I am currently writing it using OOo. When I finish it, I hope at the end of the coming term, I am first going to distribute an unofficial edition to students in PDF format (for free). This means, that I am going to have to do the page layout myself. I wanted to do it in QuarkXpress (which I have used for short articles), but I am very reluctant, because it would take me a lot of time to export everything to (figures, pictures, tables, bibliography, hundrends of footnotes, tons of cross-references ...). After 8-12 months it will be given for proper publication. Then the editor is going to do the proper page layout. But I intend to make an arrangement with the publisher to allow its free distribution in PDF form for the students.
The bibliography has to the divided in subjects for easier reference. And because it is going to be the first handbook on this particular subject in Greek, it has to be extensive (about 1,500 titles).
I think I came up with a workaround for the creation of the automated multiple/subject bibliographies in Zotero. It is not elegant, but it could be useful to people (like me) who need this feature right away:
1. Put your bibliography in Zotero Collection/Subcollections as you see fit and add citations as usual.
2. After the completion of your document/book, backup the whole library and make a new working copy of your Zotero data.
3. Assign numbers or letter (or a combination ofboth) for its various subjects (i.e. collections/subcollections) of your bibliography in an empty field, which you do not need, e.g. "Language". For example all your books in the subcollection "Bronze Age" should have the number "A1" in the field "Language". All your books in the subcollection "Iron Age" should have the number "B1" in the field "Language" and so on.
4. Copy/paste all your books from your various collections/subcollections in a single (new) collection.
5. Create a Bibliography from this collection, paste it in OOo/Word and have it sorted not only by author/date, but by language/author/date. This way, your bibliography is going to be sorted according to your subjects.
6. Manually add titles to your bibliography sections.
The advantage of this approach is that you can add automatically to each citation the equivalent section in your bibliography: e.g. for the above section Bronze Age it would be something like: A1: orpheus 2002.
Of course you need to edit your csl. I guess it has to be in the section: <sort> <key macro="language"/> <key macro="contributors"/> <key variable="issued"/> </sort>
I'm not sure the language field is accessible (yet) via CSL. You could try to do the same with the Extra field (which according to the post linked below is mapped to the note field in CSL). Just replace <sort> <key macro="language"/> <key macro="contributors"/> <key variable="issued"/> </sort> with <sort> <key variable="note"/> <key macro="contributors"/> <key variable="issued"/> </sort> Note that you don't have to create a macro if all you want to do is call a single variable.
Work around for Multiple Zotero Bibliographies ( End of Chapter or Thesis section) for Microsoft Word 2007. Essentially, one has several individual Word documents already containing their respective Zotero bibliographies, these should be collected in the same folder. One then creates an empty 'Master Document' with section breaks (Most likely "Next Page, but "Continuous" works as well) with a few paragraph marks in between the section breaks in that same folder as those sub-documents. Then, from Print View, insert a Subdocument with the Zotero Bibliography by going to /View\+[Outline] --> /Outlining\+[Show Document], [Insert]+|Insert Subdocument|+<subdocumentfilename> --> |"Rename Styles ... [No to All]/[Yes to All]|. Return to /View\+[Print Layout]. The sub-document can later be opened for editing by returning to outline view and double-clicking the small icon. I haven't used this extensively, caveat emptor, etc. More thorough description at http://www.ioe.ac.uk/ISWebsiteDocs/Guides/Computer/Office2007/MasterDocumentsWord2007.pdf Might also work for other Word Version, I'd be interested in hearing the results if someone tries!
It seems that the absence of this feature has been a massive oversight. The best implementation would probably be the ability to "tag" references with bibliographic tags (probably best to be separate from regular Zotero tags).
So, for example, a given work could be tagged with "primary source" as well as "16th century" or "french". While another reference could be "secondary source". And another still "spanish" and "17th" century.
Then, depending on the particular document, you can split the bibliographies however you wish.
It seems that the absence of this feature has been a massive oversight.
Let's avoid the "massive" hyperbole.
As for your suggestion, that's essentially the direction we've been going in the CSL discussions. It still takes someone to dedicate the many hours to designing the right UI for this, and then coding it.
It may be hyperbole but for any serious citation management, it should be clear that split bibliographies are going to frequently crop up and need to be allowed for in initial implementations. In serious applications, this is not significantly less common than taken-for-granted features like Book Section and Interview templates.
The lack of the feature is NOT an oversight; it's just a question of managing priorities.
I don't want to add anything to CSL until I'm comfortable that it will work (which by definition means across different implementations), and Zotero has had a ton of big features on their plate to implement.
I do expect to settle what, if anything, needs to be added on the CSL end this Summer, and as part of that discussion, I expect that the new CSL engine for Zotero will include the feature.
But that doesn't mean Zotero will be able to use it anytime soon, since, as I say above, it still requires work to code and design the UI. There are some issues, in particular, about how users should add and configure multiple bibliographies (a panel? directly in the document?).
As Bruce says, sectioned bibliographies are a known need, along with inline markup, improved context awareness, mixed document/citation inclusions, hierarchical relations ... both Zotero and CSL are young, and things do take time to implement. Personally, I'm interested in adapting Zotero for legal writing, which definitely requires sectioned bibliographies (i.e. tables of cases and statutes). So for my part, I'm also looking forward to seeing this feature come on stream (and have been working very hard to bring the new CSL processor to a stage of development where we can start working on these extensions). All things with time.
I didn't say you were not serious or that it was a trivial addition. I just wanted to emphasise that it should not be considered an non-obvious or optional "feature". It is a necessity for a fully-functional citation manager. I did not intend to rush development at all - I merely wanted to point out that it is a core requirement.
I was wondering if splitting the zotero bibliography into a list for each chapter of a Word-Document is not something that should be handled by the zotero.dot file that certainly includes macros for how to handle the insertion of the bibliography into the word document. There, based on a user-choice, the macro could simply check in which chapter (by using the "header 1" or other header style) the citation was made, and write the corresponding bibliography at the end of this chapter. Unfortunately, the zotero.dot file does not seem to be open source. I might be tempted to go and play with it to see if I could do it.
I don't think that it is wise to include this into a CSL definition or use information in the zotero database for this job, as I might want to use the same CSL style and the same database for different documents that require or do not require the splitting of the bibliography into chapters. I really think it's a decision to be made on the level of the document-integration rather than on the database contents or the CSL.
For the topic of splitting the bibliography according to the type of the source (primary, secondary, etc.) it might be different, there I think CSL might be appropriate.
I am not a zotero developer, so I would like to get the opinion of somebody more familiar with the structure and the programming of zotero and, e.g. the zotero.dot file.
OK. Thanks for correcting me. Can you tell me how I can work on the zotero.dot project? When I go from within MS Word to Tools->Macros->Visual Basic Editor and click on the zotero project it tells me that it can not show me its contents because it is locked!
Don't bother my comment before, I have found out how to edit the macros contained in zotero.dot.
I have also managed to change the code such that now if you have more than one bibliography inserted in your Word-Document, each bibliography will only list the items that have been cited between the last bibliography and this one. :-)
I just moved code from one section of the fnUpdate function to another one, changed some indexes and added only one additional line (!). I was not really familiar with everything in the code, so I would appreciate If someone from the development team who knows what's going on in these macros could have a look at my code-changes and correct possible bugs that I have introduced (I have commented EVERY change I did). I think the feature of having only the items in the bibliography that have been cited since the last bibliography in the document will be needed by many people...
For zotero-dev I have to sign up for google groups. I don't like it, sorry. Is there no place on the zotero platform itself that I can post it? Could I also copy the code of the changed fnUpdate function directly into the comment here?
Since I wanted to post the whole fnUpdate function to preserve the context, it was 3466 characters too long ;-). So I guess I have to use zotero-dev...
I have posted it in the zotero-dev. If you go looking for "zotero.dot" you will find it. I would appreciate if the developer team of zotero would implement something like this - carefully checked for bugs - in the next release of the Word Processor Plug-In.
Thanks, michelhaller, this is already a big improvement, at least for natural sciences, where everything is rather simple.
However, there's still no support for multiple types of bibliographies, as asked for earlier in this discussion. (e.g. by turkeyphant, Jun 11th 2009).
E.g. in language studies, we'ld need multiple bibliographies, with a subheading each. Each of them may contain references scattered throughout the whole text, and sorted according to e.g.
Secondary sources (books+reviews+interpretations on these novels, biographies)
[cite "secondary source"]
This classification, I think, should be done in the text editor (OpenOffice/MS Word), in order to allow changes in the bibliogrphy (sub-)headings, rearranging the citations, have different styles for the different bibliography sections etc. This would rely on including a tag/number to the citation fields which would attribute the to one of the multiple bibliographies.
this is on the roadmap - the forthcoming csl processor is generally able to do this (or at least most of this - different citation styles in different section bibliographies I'm not sure about) and then Zotero has to implement it - so it will be a while, but it's in the works.
This would be a huge boost in functionality. I would like to know when this is expected to be implemented. I'm currently writing a large manuscript that needs multiple bibliographies in different chapters. Perhaps "section breaks" in MS Word could be used to delineate different bibliographies?
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My fear is, that I am going to invest (probably a lot of) time to learn LaTeX/BibTeX and then at the end I shall have to convert everything I want to publish into WORD again. As I've heard this is not easy to do.
But again, I think I have to give it a try.
If I had to make multiple bibliographies based on ITEM TYPE right now first I'd:
1. Put all my references that I've cited into a collection. Then,
2. Sort that list by "type"
3. Select all items in each type
4. Right click/create bibliography from selected items
5. Copy to clipboard
6. Paste into appropriate place in document.
If i had to make multiple bibliographies based in some other reasoning, I'd still
1. Put all my references that I've cited into a collection, then
2. Create sub collections for each "other reasoning",
3. Drag items from the whole collection to the appropriate sub collection (no matter what, you need to make a decision on each item one at a time...even if you could do it as you cite).
4. Select all items in the first sub collection and copy bibliography to clipboard as above.
5. Repeat for each sub collection.
1. As you go along with your research you keep on adding (or deleting) entries in your various subcollections. This means that you constantly have to copy/paste your subcollections to your document.
2. It is error-prone, because when you add citations into your foot/endnotes or your text then you cannot be sure if you also have them in your bibliography.
3. You cannot do something like:
XII. 12th bibliography section
132. author1, book, 2002
133. author2, book, 2000
XIII. 13th bibl. section
134. author3, book, 2001
...
(the citation for the above example would be e.g. 132: author1, 2002)
I mean you could do it manually, but it would make you crazy to constantly change the numbers of the entries of your bibliography. But that's exactly the beauty of the programs like Zotero, because they do all this dirty work.
Let's go back to your first post, where you said: When you say "writing ... for students" what do you mean? Is this to be submitted to a publisher, or are you distributing it more informally? If the latter, in what form?
After 8-12 months it will be given for proper publication. Then the editor is going to do the proper page layout. But I intend to make an arrangement with the publisher to allow its free distribution in PDF form for the students.
The bibliography has to the divided in subjects for easier reference. And because it is going to be the first handbook on this particular subject in Greek, it has to be extensive (about 1,500 titles).
1. Put your bibliography in Zotero Collection/Subcollections as you see fit and add citations as usual.
2. After the completion of your document/book, backup the whole library and make a new working copy of your Zotero data.
3. Assign numbers or letter (or a combination ofboth) for its various subjects (i.e. collections/subcollections) of your bibliography in an empty field, which you do not need, e.g. "Language".
For example all your books in the subcollection "Bronze Age" should have the number "A1" in the field "Language". All your books in the subcollection "Iron Age" should have the number "B1" in the field "Language" and so on.
4. Copy/paste all your books from your various collections/subcollections in a single (new) collection.
5. Create a Bibliography from this collection, paste it in OOo/Word and have it sorted not only by author/date, but by language/author/date. This way, your bibliography is going to be sorted according to your subjects.
6. Manually add titles to your bibliography sections.
The advantage of this approach is that you can add automatically to each citation the equivalent section in your bibliography:
e.g. for the above section Bronze Age it would be something like:
A1: orpheus 2002.
Of course you need to edit your csl.
I guess it has to be in the section:
<sort><key macro="language"/>
<key macro="contributors"/>
<key variable="issued"/>
</sort>
and also add a new macro:
<macro name="language"><text variable="language"/>
</macro>
Nevertheless the above code is not working yet. I am trying to find the correct way to go.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
<sort><key macro="language"/>
<key macro="contributors"/>
<key variable="issued"/>
</sort>
with
<sort><key variable="note"/>
<key macro="contributors"/>
<key variable="issued"/>
</sort>
Note that you don't have to create a macro if all you want to do is call a single variable.
* http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4784/map-csl-event-to-zotero-conference-fields/?Focus=20597#Comment_20597
I hope that the above solution is going to be helpful also to others.
If anyone gets a better idea for a workaround to have automated subject/multiple bibliographies, please post it here.
Might also work for other Word Version, I'd be interested in hearing the results if someone tries!
Michael
So, for example, a given work could be tagged with "primary source" as well as "16th century" or "french". While another reference could be "secondary source". And another still "spanish" and "17th" century.
Then, depending on the particular document, you can split the bibliographies however you wish.
So one document could be structured: And another:
As for your suggestion, that's essentially the direction we've been going in the CSL discussions. It still takes someone to dedicate the many hours to designing the right UI for this, and then coding it.
The lack of the feature is NOT an oversight; it's just a question of managing priorities.
I don't want to add anything to CSL until I'm comfortable that it will work (which by definition means across different implementations), and Zotero has had a ton of big features on their plate to implement.
I do expect to settle what, if anything, needs to be added on the CSL end this Summer, and as part of that discussion, I expect that the new CSL engine for Zotero will include the feature.
But that doesn't mean Zotero will be able to use it anytime soon, since, as I say above, it still requires work to code and design the UI. There are some issues, in particular, about how users should add and configure multiple bibliographies (a panel? directly in the document?).
As Bruce says, sectioned bibliographies are a known need, along with inline markup, improved context awareness, mixed document/citation inclusions, hierarchical relations ... both Zotero and CSL are young, and things do take time to implement. Personally, I'm interested in adapting Zotero for legal writing, which definitely requires sectioned bibliographies (i.e. tables of cases and statutes). So for my part, I'm also looking forward to seeing this feature come on stream (and have been working very hard to bring the new CSL processor to a stage of development where we can start working on these extensions). All things with time.
I don't think that it is wise to include this into a CSL definition or use information in the zotero database for this job, as I might want to use the same CSL style and the same database for different documents that require or do not require the splitting of the bibliography into chapters. I really think it's a decision to be made on the level of the document-integration rather than on the database contents or the CSL.
For the topic of splitting the bibliography according to the type of the source (primary, secondary, etc.) it might be different, there I think CSL might be appropriate.
I am not a zotero developer, so I would like to get the opinion of somebody more familiar with the structure and the programming of zotero and, e.g. the zotero.dot file.
But I agree with your conclusion; CSL 1.0 has no formal support for this, with the details left to implementers (like Zotero).
I have also managed to change the code such that now if you have more than one bibliography inserted in your Word-Document, each bibliography will only list the items that have been cited between the last bibliography and this one. :-)
I just moved code from one section of the fnUpdate function to another one, changed some indexes and added only one additional line (!). I was not really familiar with everything in the code, so I would appreciate If someone from the development team who knows what's going on in these macros could have a look at my code-changes and correct possible bugs that I have introduced (I have commented EVERY change I did). I think the feature of having only the items in the bibliography that have been cited since the last bibliography in the document will be needed by many people...
However, there's still no support for multiple types of bibliographies, as asked for earlier in this discussion. (e.g. by turkeyphant, Jun 11th 2009).
E.g. in language studies, we'ld need multiple bibliographies, with a subheading each. Each of them may contain references scattered throughout the whole text, and sorted according to e.g.
Primary sources (novels)
[cite "primary source"]
Multimedia sources
[cite "film, audiomaterial, etc."]
Secondary sources (books+reviews+interpretations on these novels, biographies)
[cite "secondary source"]
This classification, I think, should be done in the text editor (OpenOffice/MS Word), in order to allow changes in the bibliogrphy (sub-)headings, rearranging the citations, have different styles for the different bibliography sections etc. This would rely on including a tag/number to the citation fields which would attribute the to one of the multiple bibliographies.