Comments on: Using EndNote with LaTeX

By: Amrinder

Amrinder — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:16:55 +0000

Ha, I used to struggle with the very similar problem of trying to export from EndNote to Bibtex. There are a few downloadable tools that can do the task, but a much simpler web page is at:

http://www.kromosoft.com/resources/citationconversion.php

Free, and nothing to download/register.

By: Matthias

Matthias — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:07:25 +0000

At my scientific institute, we were also seeking for a solution that lets us manage & share a common pool of academic literature, and that would be useful for both, LaTeX and MS Word users. We also wanted a solution that would allow us to dynamically update our institute's online publication lists from the same pool of bibliographic data. Since (back then) we couldn't find anything like that, we developed our own open-source solution (refbase). refbase supports import from many formats & databases, export to common bibliographic formats (such as EndNote, BibTeX, RIS or XML formats for OpenOffice & MS Word), and can make formatted lists of citations (as PDF, RTF, LaTeX, Markdown or plain text). Besides, refbase offers powerful search features, RSS support, and APIs (such as SRU/W, OpenSearch & unAPI) for machine-based retrieval. Its support for unAPI and COinS metadata allows tools such as Zotero to automatically sense & retrieve bibliographic metadata. There are also command line tools to automate search & retrieval, import or the synchronization with a local BibTeX file. And apps such as Bookends (for the Mac) offer a direct "Upload to refbase" functionality from within the program. At our institute, we use an online refbase database as our master dabase -- this allows users to choose the tool of their choice (EndNote, LaTeX/BibTeX, plain MS Word, etc) when writing their papers.

By: Pierfranco

Pierfranco — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:43:25 +0000

About the issues of the collaboration between the LaTeX and the MS Word communities: perhaps it is interesting to know that Zoho, the online office suite available for free at Zoho and whose aim is to support online collaboration, makes it possible to upload .doc files and download them authomatically converted in other formats, among which LaTeX. You can then open these converted LaTeX files using your LaTeX editor, for example TeXShop (MAC users), and process them: the result is a pdf like the original Zoho file. Unfortunately at the time Zoho doens't accept LaTeX file (don't know why, given that they are able to convert files into this format for the download). Another way for exchanging bibliographic records between the two communities is using the same reference manager: besides Zotero and the online free database CiteUlike, there is JabRef, freely available from JabRef. It can be installed on PC, MAC and Linux computers. However for exchanging it is enough to use the same export format: the more widely used is the RIS format (also known as Reference Manager Format), which has become a sort of 'lingua franca' for reference formatting software.

By: dario

dario — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:14:49 +0000

As a Mac user, I use the applications bundled with the MacTeX distribution (incidentally, MacTeX 2008 is on its way!). These include Bibdesk, a fantastic reference manager using bibtex as its native format and well integrated with TeX frontends such as TeXShop (here's a description of my TeX arsenal).

I have the same problem as Charlie when collaborating with Windows/Word users. In this case I manually copy my references in the Word document, using the appropriate output filter.

There's a sourceforge project called BibFuse consisting of "applescripts for integrating BibDesk with Microsoft Word in Mac OS X. They allow non-destructive creation of bibliographies that draw their data from BibDesk publications". I haven't checked this out yet (I'm not a big fan of AppleScript), but I'm willing to give it a try if someone else found it useful.

By: Pierfranco

Pierfranco — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:22:41 +0000

Thanks for the practical suggestion about editing bibtex records in case of annotations etc. Just a few more comments about the Zotero EndNote comparison I have proposed. To be honest, I think that a full comparison of the two applications would be useless at the moment and also unfair. This is because folks at George Mason University are working at a major enhancement: that is the possibility of storing online one’s own Zotero bibliographic records in a public folder and share them with others, just as online-only applications such as Connotea or CiteULike do, but with the major advantage of having also a local copy of one’s own bibliographic database, which RefWorks seem still unable to offer, at least at individual subscribers, since it is just an online database. This feature will really make sharing records very easy.
I could also add that at the moment Zotero doesn’t provide important features which EndNote and RefWorks offer, like the ability to do a global edit on a given set of records, or a good interface for working on subject tags, or even the ability to edit authors’ names in order to make them unifor and consistent. However, as I said, the group working at the project has surely a long list of improvements planned in the near future. Above all Zotero has the unvaluable advantage of working “inside” the browser. What we can read in today’s Official Google Blog message “A fresh take on the browser”, that is that Google’s engineers “spend much of our time working inside a browser” is true for everyone of us.

By: james

james — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:58:18 +0000

Thanks for the tip on Zotero. I tried it briefly a few months ago but never got around to importing my current library (700+ refs). However free is good and it sounds like a solution for those who don’t have Endnote provided by their employer. Zotero might also be the solution to charlie’s Mac question as well.

By the way, I forget to mention that when using the method above you might want to create a new copy of the default BibTeX export style, removing all of the notes fields from the template. Some style files, particularly those for Elsevier journals, included the notes in the output when you really don’t want it.

By: Pierfranco

Pierfranco — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:09:32 +0000

I use a Mac and my master database is managed with Zotero, the free extension to Firefox (any platform) realized by the Center for history and new media at George Mason University (http://www.zotero.org/) that has many advantages among which in my opinion at least these 7:
1) it is integrated in your browser: precisely the same tool you use for connecting to catalogues and A&I services and then you don’t have to use two different applications;
2) it has filters for a lot of online databases and catalogues, so it is able to import authomatically the records in a large number of formats just with a click of the mouse
3) it can also retrieve and store the full text of the retrieved bibliographical items, whether they are PDF, html, or doc files, while in other databases like EndNote (if I am not mistaken: certainly older version of EndNote couldn’t do the job) you can just insert links to html pages or to internal files stored on your Hard Disk, but you had to do the entire job of downloading and linking yourself
4) it has a function of using it with both MS Word and OpenOffice Write
5) it can export its records in a number of formats, among which BiBTeX (also RIS; Refer; etc.).
6) It can perform fulltext searches on the full text of the items it stores: PDF, HTML etc.
7) it is a open source project and there is a lively forum. As in the case of other open source projects its user population can improve it a lot by sending requests, messages signalling bugs etc.
So, my workflow is the following: since I use LaTeX for my papers (actually through LyX for MAC), I retrieve items from the Internet using Firefox + Zotero. When I write a paper I build a bibtex database using BibDesk (the free application for the MAC) and I fill it with the first importation of the records which I have previously selected and exported from Zotero (successive importations of new records added to the same bibtex database will also be possible, of course). The importation function is very easy: you can perform it just with a drag and drop of 1 to any number of Zotero records into BibDesk! Or you can do a batch import in the case of a consistent number of records
There is also a script for importing records authomatically in both Zotero and BibDesK through a single click of the mouse from Firefox.
Zotero can’t be used directly with LaTeX (and EndNote either) but it is recommendable for the features described above and also for sharing records with other people, whether they use Word or LaTeX since you can send them records in their preferred format.
I could also add that the import function of Zotero from online tools opened in a Firefox window is recommendable because you don’t have to set specific channels via Z39.50 for each specific database and catalogues. So the bundle Zotero + BibDesK is a very effective choice. And completely free of charge, which is not the case of EndNote, a very expensive application. Another popular commercial application for managing bibliographies, that is RefWork, appear to have the same limitations of EndNote. So why not exploiting the several advantages of using just open source applications supported by large communities of users, which is the case of both Zotero and of course LaTeX? The way open source communities work is very important for ensuring much more flexibility and speed in incorporating new technologies, which is such an essential ability nowadays for adapting to the ever changing panorama of digital technologies. The same speed and flexibility is much more difficult to find in commercial applications.

By: charlie

charlie — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:03:45 +0000

how about the converse problem of using bibtex and word? I use bibdesk, the excellent bibtex library manager for macs, but have to do hand-referencing when collaborating with people using word… any suggestions?