customizing imports from Endnote
Hi- I'm attempting to switch to Zotero from Endnote, which I've been using for many years. My biggest problem seems to be importing "Manuscript" files, and a customized reference type I created called "Letters." I notice that Zotero has both these reference types, but the transfer doesn't seem to be supported through RIS-- the manuscripts are coming through as websites, for example, and many fields are lost. I've seen the RIS format specifications, but where can I find info about how Zotero is actually translating that RIS code into Zotero fields? And is it at all possible for me to customize how Zotero imports things? This is getting very frustrating and while Zotero looks much better than Endnote in some ways, I doubt I'll be able to make this move if I can't customize the import. I just have too many strange quirks in my databases. Plus it's a point in Endnote's favor that I can customize both export and import styles there... Please help!
for a start see here:
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7441/import-from-endnote-ris-translator-editor-edited-book-extra-titles-as-notes/
for how csl maps fields see here:
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/csl_syntax_summary
http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/field_mappings
The biggest problem here is that RIS just does not support much of the information you are interested in.
Now, if you want to poke around with how Zotero imports your RIS file you would want to take a look at RIS.js (You can find this file in your translators folder of your copy of the Zotero extension.) You can browse RIS.js online if you like here https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/trunk/translators/RIS.js
Thanks! I'm sure other historians have had this problem before, but it could be that not many others have used Endnote as extensively as I have for archival sources.
However, with a text editor and a few minutes of messing around you can make a few quick edits to your RIS.js file to facilitate importing your records. Note, when there is an update to this file at some point in the future it will overwrite any changes you make, but this is most likely a one time thing, in which case the following should work just fine. So, if you take the following steps you should be able to get those fields over.
1. Find and open your local copy of RIS.js
The quickest and most reliable way to find it is through the “Show Data Directory” button in the Advanced tab of your Zotero Preferences window. Then just look for the Translators folder, inside the translators folder you will find RIS.js. You can open this up with a text editor.
2. Add two lines to the field mapping section of RIS.JS
Add these two lines directly after line 35
AL:"archiveLocation",
AX:"archive",
3. Set Endnote to use these field mappings
Just set Endnote to use the prefixs AL and AX for location in archive and archive. When you have this set up your resulting RIS files exported from Endnote should look like this.
AL - Box 15
AX - History of Science Museum
I just tried this and it worked fine. It is not a particularly elegant fix, but it will work as a quick hack to help move things over.
TY - PAMP
if you are getting webpages it probably looks likeTY - ELEC
You can either make a change to your RIS export in Endnote, or if there are no webpages in your file you could just do a find and replace to get PAMP at the top of all your files.