Zotero—Nisus

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RedPanda
Posts: 7
Joined: 2008-06-07 04:23:22

Zotero—Nisus

Post by RedPanda »

It would be really, really helpful to those in the academic community using Zotero to be able to make easy bibliographic citations in Nisus—the very, very best word-processing program. :D

Any plans for this?
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

Hi Red Panda,

If you look around the forums, you will find requests by both myself and someone else for such integration. Official Nisus people, as far as I recall, have never responded to these requests.


s
RedPanda
Posts: 7
Joined: 2008-06-07 04:23:22

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by RedPanda »

samuelas:

Yes. I noticed your posts! Then, I wondered whether if it's really incumbent on the Zotero developers to do the work of creating a Nisus plugin as they have for Word and Open Office.

In any case, devotee of Nisus that I am, I can't brag as much of Nisus's superiority to friends who already use the Word with Zotero or with another bibliographic software program. :(

My impression is that many Nisus users are writers, but maybe they're fiction writers who have no need for quick footnotes and endnotes, like academics do. :?:

Anyway, here is another person asking (no, pleading) for Nisus developers to consider this.

:wink:
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

Yes, to put it in a more dramatic way: Word 2004 is now more advanced than it was in 2004, supporting, as it does through its VBA interface, integration with Zotero, the most powerful and easy to use citation manager ever. And Nisus will miss the boat, I am confident. Zotero developers are working on a plug in for Word 2008 (which doesn't have VBA); it is possible that this plug in could be tweaked to work with other wps like Nisus, but it doesn't seem to be a priority. Indeed, Nisus people have never responded to talk about Zotero.

For now, I do scholarly writing in Mellel (with Bookends for citations). I'll go back to Zotero once they figure a way to do with Word 2008 (Word 2004 is just too much of a pain, I finally decided--I just hate how slowly it scrolls and how you need to use 150% zoom to see your text clearly). But of course, it would be much better if Nisus (or Mellel) developed an interface to Zotero.
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

Another thing, RedPanda. I think for a lot of scholars Bookends (or Zotero's word plug in) might be overkill. And if you do MLA, there's still nothing that makes that any easier. For a book manuscript in MLA format you might simply make a folder for each chapter and then, combine the folders at the end. In a field like mine (literature) where a book manuscript usually will have in the 200 references ballpark, the drag and drop "other bibiliographic capabilities" of Zotero might fit the bill. History and sociology, maybe not... Also, a lot less can go wrong than if you use the plug in.

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/309 ... st/#Item_3
RedPanda
Posts: 7
Joined: 2008-06-07 04:23:22

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by RedPanda »

Now, we're talking!

My field is history, so it's Chicago Manual for me. I transferred my diss. notes to Zotero (and still am in the process) from a homemade Filemaker database. (Tons and tons of copy/paste action here. :o ) I've become heavily invested in Zotero and not just for citing web pages and books, but for note-taking generally. I don't know if Bookends can accommodate citations and notes as well.

samuelas: Did you notice Dan Stilman's remark about dragging a citation directly into your by document using the shift key. I tried it and it works! :)
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

I use Chicago footnotes as well (with no ibid...) I think this is the simplest way to prepare a manuscript, then let the publisher tell you how they want it later. All the info is there in the document. MLA with its parenthetical page number thing--sometimes I can't tell what I just cited.

Bookends actually has a place to keep notes and attach pdfs as does Sente--Sente actually has a pretty sophisticated way of entering notes... But I hesitate to encourage you to look further. The little time you will have to spend later on fixing the footnotes is probably not worth the gain in automation that Bookends (or Sente) provides--especially since the styles are incomplete and you will probably have weird SNAFUs in the scan. (And especially since these programs work much better with Mellel than with Nisus...) A side note: aside from Zotero, the best-designed citation manager is actually the open source BibDesk, for use with the LaTeX document preparation system (mostly used by mathematicians and some CS people).

Zotero is very simple and elegant, and Nisus uses RTF as its format. In other words, you won't have automatic citations--which means you'll have to go back and fix things here and there (which you would have to do either way...), but using Nisus/Zotero gains you a nice place to compose that has a non-weird format, not to mention a simple, non-finicky workflow. Zotero has a better, easier way to store pdfs, notes, attached documents and the like than what I've experienced with Bookends. I've never been able to figure it out.

The (very recently) improved drag and drop capabilities have me trying this (Nisus/Zotero) workflow again for the chapter I'm working on. I'm starting to see that most citation managers are so flawed and labor intensive so as to negate much of their usefulness. Zotero is the exception, of course, since it really "just works."

Still, I'm very disappointed that the Nisus people have yet to consider some form of integration with Zotero.

best,

s
RedPanda
Posts: 7
Joined: 2008-06-07 04:23:22

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by RedPanda »

samuelas:

You've looked into these programs far more than I. Thanks for your insights about the pitfalls of Zotero alternatives.

Before discovering Nisus, I used Word with the Zotero plugin. Half the time it froze-up, requiring a restart or force quit. So you're right, samuelas. Imperfect automation can cost more time.


Nisus people: Listen up! I will send a case of Pocky :!: if you even address our Zotero request.
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

One more idea: If you're running Leopard, using Exposé also might help... In one Expose section you can keep Nisus and in the next you can place Firefox--a key stroke can take you back and forth easily... Great on a laptop.
samuelas
Posts: 41
Joined: 2007-09-02 09:32:02
Location: Hartford, CT

Re: Zotero—Nisus

Post by samuelas »

Zotero has added rtf citation scan. Still under development, so it's not perfect, but looks like a solution. I don't like writing in Word and I don't like using Bookends or Sente, so this is the makings of a very good solution for me--hopefully for others too.

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/696 ... ture-work/
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