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Re: Converting endnote to filemakerpro
Author: Tina Kimmel    Posted: Wed, 14 May 2003 03:06:25 -0700
At 10:27 PM +0200 5/13/03, Nathan Cherny wrote: >Can anyone please advise me how to convert an endnote file into a FILEMAKER >database. I would also like to know how to do this. I have tried following the directions in Endnote's Help files regarding exporting, ie: - choose the "Tab Delimited" Output Style - export desired records to a text file - import the text file into Filemaker Pro But this only seems to work for reference entries that do not have notes or keywords, as the hard returns in these fields throw the database fields completely out of alignment during the import. I found a "Mac/PC" entry in the Endnote website's Tech Support Database (Record #486) that suggested first replacing the hard returns within a field (see entry #629) with "Ctrl-T"... at least when exporting to ProCite. But this didn't work for Endnote for the Mac. (Of course you could replace the hard returns with something else, like a $, and then change them back once the data was in Filemaker. ugh!) I experimented a little further. I found my best results by using the "ProCite Export" Output Style instead, because this style encloses each entire field in quotes like a comma-delimited format does, and that eliminated the problem with the hard returns. Filemaker recognized that format just fine, and even stripped the quotes. However, about 5% of the records still had unexplainable errors in importing that again threw the fields out of whack. >I am still trying to find a way to post a very large reference database on the >web. Nathan, in the Filemaker 6 help file entry called "About exchanging information", it says "Note: You cannot import or export data when you access a database using a Web browser". Depending on what you had in mind, if we get the Endnote-Filemaker link solved, you might want to look into the feasibility of using Filemaker's Remote Data Access Companion instead of the Web. Tina Kimmel »@«*´`*»@ ¸¸.·´¯`*´`*»@«*´`*»@«*´`*»@« Tina Kimmel, MSW, MPH PhD Program, UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare

Re: Converting endnote to filemakerpro
Author: Ken    Posted: Thu, 15 May 2003 17:20:42 +1000
>>Can anyone please advise me how to convert an endnote file into a FILEMAKER >>database. I think it was H.L.Mencken who once wrote "To every complex problem there is always a simple solution. And it is always wrong." This is one of those problems. To understand better, think for a minute about why you are using EndNote for your bibliographic database, and not one of the other excellent general-purpose databases such as FileMaker Pro, Access etc. If you are like most people the major reason will be EndNote's conjunction with your word processor to insert in-text citations and format them and bibliographies in the rigid specifications of any of hundreds of different styles. You can't do that with FileMaker or Access, or at least not nearly as conveniently, accurately or flexibly. You can with EndNote (or Procite or Reference Manager or...) because these are database applications prepared for the requirements of storing proper bibliographic data, and specifically recognising that the data you must store are very different for different reference types. When you cite a book in your document, you recover different reference data from your database file to the data you need for a journal article, or a book chapter, and you process those data in different ways for your formatted bibliography. It's not easy to do this in a general-purpose database, but you can at least display the data and with applications like FileMaker Pro put it up there on the Web if you want other people to be able to look at it raher than use it for detailed document preparation. If your EndNote database contains references of only one reference type (e.g. all journal articles, or all books, etc.) it isn't difficult to export it to a tab- or comma-delimited text file, and then import that file into a compatible FileMaker Pro database. FileMaker Pro comes with the tools that you then need to post that database on the Web (subject to certain conditions - but see FileMaker literature about that). You need only to design an empty FMPro database with the same fields as your exported reference type, use/write an appropriate EndNote style and use it to export your EndNote data, and then import into FMPro. It is certainly true, as others have pointed out, that it may be necessary to repair some anomalies in your EndNote database - particularly EndNote fields such as Keywords, Abstract and Notes which may contain hard return (paragraph end) characters; these upset the layout of a tab-delimited file in particular. One way is to use EndNote's Change Text command before exporting - in these three fields or any others that you know to contain internal hard returns, just ask EndNote to change all occurrences of the hard return character (option-Enter on the Mac, Control-Enter on the PC) to something like "; " (semicolon-space). Problem gone. (Don't do this to the Author, Editor, Translator fields however - you'll want to setup your export style to format multiple author/editor/translator names in the way you want to see them in your FMPro database, and it can only do this if it finds multiple authors etc. on separate lines in the corresponding EndNote field.) Now you can use EndNote's default Tab-delimited style to export selected or all references from your EndNote database to a tab-delimited text file. Open the style for editing in EndNote, and you will probably find that it has only one bibliographic template, for the Generic reference type, and this template will include all the Generic fields (up to nearly 40 of them, depending on your version of EndNote and of the style). You have several choices - 1. Leave the template as is and export all fields, even though most of them will be empty for any one reference type, and design your FMPro database to have all of those fields. Or 2. Edit the style template to export only those fields that you need for your references, and design your FMPro database accordingly. Or 3. Compromise. For example, if you don't use EndNote's Custom fields or Label field etc. in any of your references you could safely delete them from the template - this will give you a more compact FMPro database. But remember that many of the Generic fields that are not used in, say, the Journal Article reference type are used for other reference types - don't delete them without careful thought. If you are exporting only one reference type, (2) or maybe (3) would be best. However if you want to transfer data for multiple reference types, (1) is probably the way to go. It's the safest, but you will have to design your FMPro database with a lot of fields. Why not try this and see how you get on? Export all or selected references (maybe initially do an EndNote search to find only one reference type, such as Journal Article, and go with that for the time being). Then open FMPro, lay out a database with fields corresponding to those you have exported (in the same order), and import your tab-delimited file into that. You'll probably find that you have to do some fine-tuning of the export style to get things looking just the way you want them (e.g. author names), and you may have to watch out for some potential minor complications - for example if the Generic template in your export style begins or ends with a hard return character other than the default one at its end, delete it, or else you will get blank references in your FMPro database interleaved with all the real ones. If this works for you, now think about exporting mixed reference types. It can be done. My initial suggestion would be to include Reference Type (plus a tab character) as an export prefix, and create a new field in the FMPro database to display it. In my experiments this has worked quite well, but there are all sorts of other possibilities. At this stage I've written more than enough for the user list, and I have no personal experience of actually mounting a FileMaker database on the Web. But feel free to email me if you think I can help you any further. Ken Williams

RE: Converting endnote to filemakerpro
Author: Sabina Robertson    Posted: Sat, 17 May 2003 19:15:20 +1000
Ken Here is information that I received from ISI technical support: Yes it is possible to transfer data out of Filemaker and into Endnote. Endnote is able to import tab or comma delimited text formats. Please refer to the Help files or the manual on how to import tab or comma delimited formats. This section describes two different formats that EndNote can import. Use a word processor to modify your data file to get the references into one of these formats: · A tab-delimited format (best if your data is in a database or spreadsheet that can export to a tab-delimited file) · A tagged format (best for when your data is in a word processor document and looks like a bibliography) Creating a Tab-Delimited Format The Tab-delimited import option can import text files in which each reference is separated by a paragraph mark (¶), and the fields within a reference are separated by tabs. Most databases or spreadsheets can export a tab-delimited text file. Preparing the Data Before Exporting Author Names: Before you export the data from a database or spreadsheet into a text file, we recommend, if possible, that you separate multiple author names with a semicolon (;) or two forward slashes "//", such as: McCartney, P.//Harrison, G.// Lennon, J. If you cannot easily do this in your database, you can do it after exporting, or manually edit the data after it is imported into EndNote. Reference Types: If possible, you should make sure that each of your references includes a field indicating the reference types. Use EndNote's Reference Type names so that EndNote is able to recognize the formats. If you have only one type of reference (such as Journal Articles), it is not necessary to do this-the import settings can indicate that all references should be imported as journals by default. If you cannot label each reference with the appropriate Reference Type name, you should export your data into separate files based on reference type. This makes it easy to preserve the original reference types of the references when importing the data files into EndNote. Preparing the Data File for Import Once the tab-delimited file(s) are generated, you must open each file in a text editor or word processor and add two lines to it. These lines tell EndNote what the default reference type is for the data, and how the data should be interpreted. First Line: The Default Reference Type The first line of the file must define the default reference type for the entire file. The format for the first line is an asterisk immediately followed by a valid EndNote reference type, followed by a paragraph mark (¶). For example, *Journal Article <¶> If you could not make separate files based on reference type, you can specify each reference type individually within one file. In this case, your first line must be the "*Generic" reference type. Then you can set up an additional column called "Reference Type," and under it, have the actual EndNote reference type names. For example: *Generic <¶> Reference Type <tab> Author <tab> Year <tab> Title <tab> Secondary Title <¶> Journal Article <tab> Jones, J// Smith, S. <tab> 1994 <tab> Easy Pie <tab> J. of Eating <¶> Book Section <tab> Woo, W. //Lee, L. <tab> 1995 <tab> Rain Hats <tab> J. of Clothing <¶> Report <tab> Carlos, C.//Luis, R. <tab> 1991 <tab> Cat Talk <tab> J. of Animals <¶> The "<tab>" and "<¶>" characters are used to indicate where an actual tab and paragraph mark should be entered; the literal text "<tab>" and "<¶>" should not be typed. Second Line: EndNote Field Names The second line of the tab-delimited file must contain the actual field names used by EndNote into which you want the data imported. The order of the fields names does not matter, as long as they correspond to the order of the data in the rows beneath them and correspond to the names of the default reference type. For example, if your default reference type is "*Journal Article," then the field names in the second line of your file will be those of the Journal Article reference type: *Journal Article<¶> Author <tab> Year <tab> Title <tab> Journal <tab> Volume <¶> Jones, J// Shoe, S <tab> 1994 <tab> Easy Food <tab> J. of Eating <tab> 1 <¶> Woo, W //Lee, L <tab> 1995 <tab> Rain Hats <tab> J. of Clothing <tab> 2 <¶> Carlos, C//Luis, L <tab> 1991 <tab> Cat Talk <tab> J. of Animals <tab> 3 <¶> The field names must be separated by tabs, and a paragraph mark must follow the last field name. Only ANSI or ASCII text files can be imported. This means no fonts or text styles can be preserved during import. When you are ready to import this file into EndNote, choose Import from the File menu, and select Tab-Delimited as your import option. Creating a Custom "Tagged" Format If you have a large bibliography that you would like to import into EndNote, it may be possible to use your word processor's Find and Replace commands to insert descriptive tags in front of some of the fields of data so that EndNote can accurately import the references. In addition to adding tags, you will also need to make a filter to read your tags. 1. Save a Copy of Your File Open your bibliography in a word processor and save a copy of the file with a new name (this is your backup). Remove everything but the reference data from the file. 2. Add Descriptive Field Tags Use your word processor's Find and Replace commands to search for unique delimiters between fields, and insert paragraph marks and descriptive field tags in front of specific fields. Suppose your references look like this: Jones, M. C. and Harrison, G. (1990) Planet X Icarus. Vol. 3 no. 4, pp. 11-23. Billoski, T.V. (1990) Greenhouse hypothesis Extinction. Vol 2 no. 1 pp. 12-18. The process of converting this bibliographic format to a tagged format would be something like this: Search for 2 paragraph marks (since the references are separated by 1 blank line), and replace with two paragraph marks and a tag "XX-" followed by a space. The result is a tagged data file that looks like this: XX- Jones, M. C. and Harrison, G. (1990) "Planet X" Icarus. Vol. 3 no. 4, pp. 11-23. XX- Billoski, T.V. (1990) "Greenhouse hypothesis" Extinction. Vol 2 no. 1 pp. 12-18. Once you have made all the changes to tag as much of the data as necessary, save the file (be sure to save it as a plain ASCII or ANSI text file), and create an import filter to match the tags and formats of the references. 3. Create a Filter Using EndNote, create a new filter to read your data file. 4. Clean Up the Data After you set up your file with tags and create a filter to import it, you should test and refine the filter by importing into a new library. Once your filter is working as you would like it, you can use it to import the data file into your real EndNote library. If you can't get the filter to import everything exactly as you want, you may have to do some manual editing to correct this either before or after importing the data into EndNote. You might find it useful to import into a test library, and use the Change Text command from EndNote's Edit menu or the Change and Move Fields command from the References menu to clean up the data. Then transfer these references to your real library (using drag and drop, copy and paste, or the Import command). Sabina Robertson Research Consultant School of Graduate Studies University of Melbourne Parkville 3010 Australia Telephone: +61 3 8344 8466 Fax: +61 3 9349 2103 Email: /> -----Original Message----- From: Ken Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 5:21 PM To: /> Subject: Re: Converting endnote to filemakerpro >>Can anyone please advise me how to convert an endnote file into a FILEMAKER >>database. I think it was H.L.Mencken who once wrote "To every complex problem there is always a simple solution. And it is always wrong." This is one of those problems. To understand better, think for a minute about why you are using EndNote for your bibliographic database, and not one of the other excellent general-purpose databases such as FileMaker Pro, Access etc. If you are like most people the major reason will be EndNote's conjunction with your word processor to insert in-text citations and format them and bibliographies in the rigid specifications of any of hundreds of different styles. You can't do that with FileMaker or Access, or at least not nearly as conveniently, accurately or flexibly. You can with EndNote (or Procite or Reference Manager or...) because these are database applications prepared for the requirements of storing proper bibliographic data, and specifically recognising that the data you must store are very different for different reference types. When you cite a book in your document, you recover different reference data from your database file to the data you need for a journal article, or a book chapter, and you process those data in different ways for your formatted bibliography. It's not easy to do this in a general-purpose database, but you can at least display the data and with applications like FileMaker Pro put it up there on the Web if you want other people to be able to look at it raher than use it for detailed document preparation. If your EndNote database contains references of only one reference type (e.g. all journal articles, or all books, etc.) it isn't difficult to export it to a tab- or comma-delimited text file, and then import that file into a compatible FileMaker Pro database. FileMaker Pro comes with the tools that you then need to post that database on the Web (subject to certain conditions - but see FileMaker literature about that). You need only to design an empty FMPro database with the same fields as your exported reference type, use/write an appropriate EndNote style and use it to export your EndNote data, and then import into FMPro. It is certainly true, as others have pointed out, that it may be necessary to repair some anomalies in your EndNote database - particularly EndNote fields such as Keywords, Abstract and Notes which may contain hard return (paragraph end) characters; these upset the layout of a tab-delimited file in particular. One way is to use EndNote's Change Text command before exporting - in these three fields or any others that you know to contain internal hard returns, just ask EndNote to change all occurrences of the hard return character (option-Enter on the Mac, Control-Enter on the PC) to something like "; " (semicolon-space). Problem gone. (Don't do this to the Author, Editor, Translator fields however - you'll want to setup your export style to format multiple author/editor/translator names in the way you want to see them in your FMPro database, and it can only do this if it finds multiple authors etc. on separate lines in the corresponding EndNote field.) Now you can use EndNote's default Tab-delimited style to export selected or all references from your EndNote database to a tab-delimited text file. Open the style for editing in EndNote, and you will probably find that it has only one bibliographic template, for the Generic reference type, and this template will include all the Generic fields (up to nearly 40 of them, depending on your version of EndNote and of the style). You have several choices - 1. Leave the template as is and export all fields, even though most of them will be empty for any one reference type, and design your FMPro database to have all of those fields. Or 2. Edit the style template to export only those fields that you need for your references, and design your FMPro database accordingly. Or 3. Compromise. For example, if you don't use EndNote's Custom fields or Label field etc. in any of your references you could safely delete them from the template - this will give you a more compact FMPro database. But remember that many of the Generic fields that are not used in, say, the Journal Article reference type are used for other reference types - don't delete them without careful thought. If you are exporting only one reference type, (2) or maybe (3) would be best. However if you want to transfer data for multiple reference types, (1) is probably the way to go. It's the safest, but you will have to design your FMPro database with a lot of fields. Why not try this and see how you get on? Export all or selected references (maybe initially do an EndNote search to find only one reference type, such as Journal Article, and go with that for the time being). Then open FMPro, lay out a database with fields corresponding to those you have exported (in the same order), and import your tab-delimited file into that. You'll probably find that you have to do some fine-tuning of the export style to get things looking just the way you want them (e.g. author names), and you may have to watch out for some potential minor complications - for example if the Generic template in your export style begins or ends with a hard return character other than the default one at its end, delete it, or else you will get blank references in your FMPro database interleaved with all the real ones. If this works for you, now think about exporting mixed reference types. It can be done. My initial suggestion would be to include Reference Type (plus a tab character) as an export prefix, and create a new field in the FMPro database to display it. In my experiments this has worked quite well, but there are all sorts of other possibilities. At this stage I've written more than enough for the user list, and I have no personal experience of actually mounting a FileMaker database on the Web. But feel free to email me if you think I can help you any further. Ken Williams

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