Importing Reference Lists from Word Processing Documents into Reference Tracker

30 January 2010

Reference Tracker, our reference and citation management software, has the ability to read in reference lists and bibliographies that have been typed out manually, or otherwise created, in a word processing document. As long as the references are formatted in one of the styles that Reference Tracker works with, the publications in the word processing file will be added as references in a Reference Tracker document.

Importing and understanding text in a regular word processor file can be a bit difficult for a computer application, simply due to the vagaries of the English language, so Reference Tracker's importer will give you the opportunity to look over its work and make any corrections if necessary.

To begin the import, open a new or existing Reference Tracker document and select 'File > Import > Formatted Reference List'.

A dialog will appear outlining the requirements for importing a formatted list. After reading it, click continue and you will see an open dialogue where you can select your word processing document containing the reference list.

After you select your file Reference Tracker will ask which formatting style was used in the file. Select the appropriate style from the pop up list.

Reference Tracker's importer will then scan the file and try to extract all the Reference information it finds. You will then see a window where you can see the results and make any corrections if necessary.

The top half of the window shows the contents of the file you imported. Reference Tracker will highlight the first piece of text it believes to be a reference in green. The popup menu in the middle of the window shows the type of publication the importer believes the reference to be (i.e. a book, of journal article, etc). If the importer has chosen the wrong publication type, you can correct it by choosing the correct type form the pop up menu. The bottom half of the window shows the information that the importer has extracted for the reference (such as the title, author, publisher, etc). If any of this information is incorrect, you can correct it by typing into the appropriate field in the bottom half of the window, or by copy/pasting from the file contents in the top half of the window into the bottom.

Once you have confirmed that the Reference information is OK, you can check the next reference in the file by clicking the button with the right-pointing arrow. If the importer has found some text that it believes is a reference, but in fact is not, you can discard it by clicking the "Discard this reference" button. When you have checked all the references are OK, click the "Accept All & Import" button, and the references will be added to your Reference Tracker document.