Bibliography: Importing from Excel

[tays01s]

Can I import an Excel spreadsheet containing my references, into the Bibliography database?

And can you change bibliographical font colour (I can see that you can change the background), font type or position (eg. raised)?

Thanks,
Stephen

[jrkrideau]

Can I import an Excel spreadsheet containing my references, into the Bibliography database?

And can you change bibliographical font colour (I can see that you can change the background), font type or position (eg. raised)?

Thanks,
Stephen

I'm just guessing but I think you'd be better off importing the Excel file into Calc and working from there.

On the other hand, the last time I looked the OOo bibliograhic component was horrible. I't suggest having a look at Zotero which is a complete bilbliographic system.

[Villeroy]

FIle>New>Database...
[X] Connect to existing database
Type: SPreadsheet
point to your Calc file
[X] Register the database
Store the database document which is just configuration. Your data remain in the spreadsheet.

Now you can use that datasource instead of the built-in bibliography.
The same setup works similarly with any kind of tabular data source. Once you connected a Base document to it, you can use the data in exactly the same manner regardless of database server, dBase files, csv, spreadsheet, mail addressbook, whatever.

I'm just guessing but I think you'd be better off importing the Excel file into Calc and working from there.

The file format does not matter as long as OOo can read it anyhow. You can even import database data which can not be read by OOo when the database vendor provides a so called ODBC or JDBC driver which can be used to query data from the foreign database.

[tays01s]

How would you go about importing the spreadsheet?

[Villeroy]

Import the spreadsheet into the biblio table?
Select the range (include fisrt row of column labels), hit F4 and drag the range onto the "Bibliography" icon.
You'll be prompted for the table name (which is "biblio") before you can map the source columns to the respective target columns.
The same drag&drop/copy&paste operation works with the table icons (not "opened" table views) between 2 database windows, one database bound to the spreadsheet, the ohter database bound to the dBase-biblio (which is a dBase file in your user profile actually).

[tays01s]

Yes import into Bibliography table.

Is there an alternative to F4, my function keys 'do there own thing'!
Bibliography icon?

Apologies for my ignorance. Totally new to Biblio's and Base.

[Villeroy]

menu:View>Datasources

[tays01s]

I've managed to get my spreadsheet into a data source but how to do you get it recognised as a Bibliography? Eg. is 'mapping' what I should search for in the Writer manuel?

Re. Citation:
a) Is it possible to format the citation throughout the document? Eg. change font colour, size, position (raised).

b) Citation search: Is it correct that you can't search for citations (eg. author name) within the text? My Find search only found that author entry in the Bibliography itself. This would be a great weakness.

Thanks,
Stephen

[Villeroy]

In your Writer document:
menu:>Tools>Biblio Database

Opens a special database window I never noticed until now.
The rightmost button between menu and grid view lets you select your own database among the registered databases.

Related documentation on the wiki site:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik ... bliography

[tays01s]

Yes, done that and appear to have the correct table now loaded as the 'bibliography'. I've also 'mapped' the spreadsheet columns to bibliography columns. Problems:
1. Inserting: The insertion drop down is blank, in spite of the mapping.
2. I can see how to get rid of unwanted databases, but say within Bibliograph/Tables: how do I get rid of individual tables?

3. Thanks for the formatting Bibliography info. However, this doesn't seem to cover how to format the 'insertion'. Also why is the insertion [author, number] not searchable through 'Find'? It means its very difficult to locate where a reference might be inserted within the text.

Thanks, I think I'm nearly there!

[Villeroy]

Well, your tables are in a spreadsheet (which is the worst choice for this purpose since spreadsheets do not have any tables).
You can:
- Delete the "tables" in Calc.
- Define named database ranges (Data>Define...) to separate list ranges from other content on the same sheet.
So a "table" in a spreadsheet is a rectangle of cells which constitutes the sheet's used range unless it is a database range.
- Open the database document and hide some of the pseudo-tables. This affects the all data source views.

[tays01s]

I've defined a range and specified this + mapped the fields and these correctly appear in the field headings. However, when coming to insert, I still find a blank drop down. As soon as I transfer back to the eg. Biblio the dd populates. Not sure what I'm missing?

What about:
3. Thanks for the formatting Bibliography info. However, this doesn't seem to cover how to format the 'insertion'. Also why is the insertion [author, number] not searchable through 'Find'? It means its very difficult to locate where a reference might be inserted within the text.

[Villeroy]

Can you restart the whole office suite and see if this cures anything?
Which drop down is blank? What do you expect to be in that drop down?
Version 3.2.1 has a bug which prevents columns of mixed text and numbers to be shown. All other versions convert mixed columns to text.
I can't tell anything about your third point.

[tays01s]

Thanks. Have tried re-starting NeoOffice, same problem that the Insert>Biblio entry
drop-down is not populated with the 'short names' that I can see listed within the Table I've added to the Bibliography database. The dd remains blank until I go back to the example Biblio table provided in NeoOffice.

Incidentally my table has 2 columns, both textual but with numbers within it. Is this likely to invoke the bug?

[Villeroy]

The field is blank when the spreadsheet column contains one number among text or one text among numbers.
Convert your spreadsheet columns to text or upgrade to 3.3 where mixed spreadsheet columns are converted to text.

[tays01s]

I converted the spreadsheet to text, but fields are now appear blank in Tools>Bibliography database (they are fine in View>Data sources) and when I try to load the eg. Biblio instead of my 'Refs' it's not accepted because the field names are different (but doesn't allow me to change them).

Neo is only at 3.1.2 so I would convert to OO 3.3 but the latter appears to lose symbols during convertion, so I can't afford to make the change with such a long document.

I think until OO make it possible to search for 'in-text' citations, I'll give this up and use manual insertion. However, thanks for all the help; it may well come in useful in the future.

[RoryOF]

On your next project you should look at Zotero as your citation manager; it seems to be becoming the biblio manager of choice.

[tays01s]

Is there a user guide to Zotero? I did have a quick look and didn't find it immediately accessible, particularly re. importing my current refs. I didn't give it much study though; I wanted to gather opinions before investing time.

Thanks,
Stephen

[RoryOF]

A Google search should throw up some brief but concise university guides for students who wish to use Zotero. I found some about a year ago, but haven't got any links.

Edit: Here is Zotero's own Quick Start guide http://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide And another site with some useful links for citation work http://www.condast.com/zotero/index.html

[tays01s]

Tried Zotero and Mendeley (better for science perhaps) but neither is perfect and Mendeley was rubbish at picking out metedata from pdf's. So, I'm back to trying OO's bibli with 3.3.0. I've still got the problem of my mapped ref table being selected in data sources and chosen in Tools>Bibliography database, but when I try to insert refs, the drop down is blank. In fact even when I go back to the eg. bibliography, though the drop down is populated, it shows as 'Bibliography entry' but only shows the actual ref (eg. '[KOE00]) when I paste it elsewhere.

Am I missing something (again!)?