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More information about import filters in general

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 4:37 am
by Eckius
A newbie question, I know, but … how do you make an import filter for a library or database you're interested in? Is it difficult? Are there some predefined patterns you can use for it? And is it possible to use the same filter with any application, and with both Windows and Macintosh, or does each application and each OS system require its own filters? And finally, is there a site on the net which gives further information about all this?

Re: More information about import filters in general

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:59 am
by Jon
Eckius wrote:how do you make an import filter for a library or database you're interested in? Is it difficult?
Good questions that would be better in the Bookends forum, but...

Making a filter is pretty easy (well, IMO). It's quite logical, and spelled out in detail in the User Guide. The thing that usually gives the most trouble is defining what tag indicates a new reference. When you get "0 references imported", this is almost always the problem. Attention to detail is very important -- for example, if the tag ends in a dash (without a space in between), you need to enter that in the filter (e.g. PMID- for PubMed; PMID will not work). A typical filter takes me perhaps 5 minutes to create. And of course we can help if you run into difficulties.
Are there some predefined patterns you can use for it? And is it possible to use the same filter with any application, and with both Windows and Macintosh, or does each application and each OS system require its own filters?
Bookends comes with about 40 filters, and of course you can easily duplicate one and modify it (the New button in the Import Filters window duplicates the selected filter, BTW). The filters should work with either Mac OS or Windows text files (caveat: some accented characters may change on import because Mac OS uses MacRoman and Windows uses Latin1 encoding -- this is not a problem for standard ASCII text files, of course, and will not be an issue at all in Bookends 8 ). I'm not sure what you mean "with any application". Filters are for importing text files, and of course only work with Bookends.

And finally, is there a site on the net which gives further information about all this?
The Bookends User Guide (a separate download from the Sonny Software downloads page) contains everything you need to know about filters (and a lot more).

Jon
Sonny Software

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 5:46 pm
by Guest
Thank you, Jon. But there's still something quite basic, something quite fundamental I don't understand. When I consult an online catalogue of a library, e.g. the British Library or the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, and I want to transfer some titles I found there to my Bookends database, which acts exactly do I have successively to perform?

Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 6:33 pm
by Jon
You need to create an import filter that will parse the information provided by that source (if it's a library, it's likely to be in MARC format).

You would then either save the data (as text) to a file, or better yet simply copy it from the browser (if that's the app you are using to access the site) to the clipboard, switch to Bookends, and Import References from the clipboard using the filter you created.

Since you obviously have specific examples in mind, I suggest you contact me directly with an example of what you want to import (saved as a text file) and I'll see what's to be done.

Please send it to

support@sonnysoftware.com

Jon
Sonny Software