pdf export to jabref: congruence of bibtex key and file name?

Jannick
What is the best and easiest way to export citations AND pdf's to jabref without changing the file names?

In the current version of Z the bibtex key and the pdf file name are not identical such that jabref cannot find the imported file automatically.
I am already aware of just drag&drop references from Z to jabref which makes life very easy. But for handling files I cannot see a very neat way to import to jabref.

To be honest, I have seen thorough discussions about this going on for a long time. I am interested on what can be done with the latest version of Z.

Any help will be much appreciated.

/J.
  • noksagt
    The links work for me on linux. Zotero exports relative links that are formatted using JabRef's syntax. The only slight caveat is that attachments are exported in the order they appear in Zotero. If you have a web snapshot, it may have a higher priority than the PDF attachment. Please describe what you're seeing more precisely & the system you're using if you'd like more help.
  • Jannick
    Working on WinVista with jabref 2.6 and zotero 2.0.9.

    Transferring a citation to jabref via drag&drop nicely creates a reference item in jabref with a bibtex key in format [author][yyyy] (as set up in the jabref prefs), but no relative link for attachments.
    Exporting the pdf's from Z for selected items in the Z list using the export drop down menu saves the attachments with file names like "[author] - [year] - [title, restricted to limited number of letters or significant words]". Here I selected BibTeX. The exported folder preserves the sub-folder structure in Z - which does not bother me too much as this problem can be easily solved although it needs some manual, but nasty fiddling (this could be amended, too, in my opinion, but it does not have very high priority). The file names of the attachments (here: PDFs) saved in the Z repository seem to be created during the download procedure from sites whose information structure is known to Z; if Z does not recognize the structure, Z just keeps the file name of the downloadable file.

    Now my questions yielding my problems:

    1 - What can be done such that jabref can _automatically_ associate the PDF attachments to the citation item imported to jabref?

    2 - Is there any way to attach the file/s transfer to the drag&drop method for transferring the citation AND the attachment to, say, jabref?

    Hope this can help to tackle the problem. If some more information are needed just give me a shout. Thx!
  • noksagt
    Transferring a citation to jabref via drag&drop nicely creates a reference item in jabref with a bibtex key in format [author][yyyy] (as set up in the jabref prefs), but no relative link for attachments.
    ....
    1 - What can be done such that jabref can _automatically_ associate the PDF attachments to the citation item imported to jabref?
    drag-and-drop does not export files, so there are no links. If you export a BibTeX file in zotero (with attachments), JabRef will import it and have links to the files.
    2 - Is there any way to attach the file/s transfer to the drag&drop method for transferring the citation AND the attachment to, say, jabref?
    Are you able to drag+drop file links to JabRef with any other program?
  • Jannick
    @ 1: Jabref does not show any link to the files on my hard drive in any citation item imported to jabref. Because, for a reference item, the bibtex key (format [author][year]) is different from the name of the exported file there is the problem of how jabref can correctly associate the files to the ref items. This is the problem I am facing at the moment.

    @ 2: No, I hoped that Z could do that.
  • noksagt
    1:JabRef does not require the filenames to be the same as the BibTeX keys if the files are already linked (which, with Zotero, they can be). The filename scheme is only relevant if you need JabRef to create new links, which you shouldn't have to. I'll give explicit instructions. In Zotero:
    1. Select one or more references
    2. Right click and select "Export selected Item(s)
    3. Choose BibTeX and to export files and hit OK
    4. Choose a new directory name to store these in and press 'ok'
    In JabRef, File->open database & choose the BibTex file you created. There should be icons (likely either PDF or web icons) in the second column, showing that there is a link. If you edit a record in JabRef, you can go to the 'general' tab & there should be File links listed. If you click on the BibTeX source tab, you should see a line that looks like:file = {IOP Full Text PDF:files/2247/M Aketagawa and K Takada - 1995 - Correction of distorted STM image by using a regul.pdf:PDF;Correction of distorted STM image by using a regular crystalline lattice and 2D FFT:files/2249/001.html:URL},

    2: If you aren't aware of a program that can already do this, it may just not be possible...
  • Jannick
    @ 1: Ahh. What I was doing was an import (!) instead of opening the database as you proposed. This makes the difference such that links do not show up in jabref any more. This was enlightening. Your way it works fine.

    Now remains: The bibtex keys in the created BibTeX file are not always meaningful. Is there a configuration tweak to change the Z bibtex keys to the format [author][year]?
  • noksagt
    You could edit the translator to remove the title bit, but it would not ensure that keys were unique. You can also just use JabRef to auto-generate keys.
  • Jannick
    Ok, that's what the bibtex key generator button in jabref's menu line for to generate the keys for highlighted items in the ref list.

    Thanx for your great help and patience.
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