Journal abbreviations
Currently the "Nature" style is not correct due to no distinction between journal and journal abbreviation.
It would be nice to offer an option of an abbreviation list of journals like in JabRef.
mleini
shared this idea
Thanks so much for your feedback everyone. No one rated the feature lower than 7/10 which gives us a lot of confidence in this solution.
We’ve compiled your questions and feedback and tried to answer as many of them as possible.
Q&A Document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XzJ3w64rw9mvob9BlMvGyvH48UHPUVaHTEVsB39NSzQ/edit?usp=sharing
You can read the original proposal, and submit feedback here:
https://docs.google.com/a/mendeley.com/forms/d/1VsXPlTvTaLXc-cWUVWBpiwqiL-bMBBbBtG_bxZ4xktA/viewform
This is currently on our roadmap for Mendeley Desktop 1.10. Expected release date is the start of August.
199 comments
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Daniel Gündel
commented
thx!!!! awesome!
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Federico Soria
commented
I've added periods.
The file works correctly now (some abbreviations may not be correctly punctuated, such as some short words, but hey, it's an improvement).Download as usual from http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75692408/AbbreviationsFixMendeley.zip
and read the instructions in the "Readme" file.
(Remember that if you want to remove the periods in your reference list, you have to specify it in the csl style, STRIP PERIODS variable) -
Federico Soria
commented
It seems that since the "default.txt" I provided does not have periods at the end of the abbreviations, it is useless (the txt file MUST have the periods, and you can remove them in your csl style).
I found another txt list with periods, but it's uppercase, so it's useless also. I see only two options while we wait to Mendeley team to fix this indispensable feature:1- To find a correct txt file, with periods and proper case. (I'm searching)
2- To write a script to convert the current file, adding periods to all the words in a line after every "tab" character. (This shouldn't be difficult, but I have no idea of programming) -
Jichun Zhou
commented
I followed Federico N. Soria's instruction, and it did work! Thank you very very much! Besides the journal abbreviation list posted by Federico N. Soria is a very good version. I can find all the journal there. Thank you very much!!
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Federico Soria
commented
I've created a "default.txt" file from the NCBI abbreviations database and a txt with abbreviations I found in the Mendeley Website. Why 2 files merged in one? The NCBI file contained all abbreviations but journal titles were uppercase, and some journals in my library are lowercased. The 2nd file contained lowercase journal titles and dots after the abbreviations (I removed the dots, because you can add them via the CSL editor for any particular style). The unified txt file I provide here covers both (uppercased and lowercased Journal Titles). If you use a style without journal abbreviations, they will be displayed uppercase or lowercase deppending on your library, and that needs another fix that is beyond the purpose of this one. (BTW, this uppercase/lowercase thing bothers me a lot so if you find a solution please tell me).
The file: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/75692408/AbbreviationsFixMendeley.zip
Installation:1- While in Mendeley Desktop, press CTRL+SHIFT+D, then "Open Data Directory" (This will open Mendeley's working directory)
2- Create a folder named "journalAbbreviations", if it is not already there.
3- Paste "default.txt" file into the newly created folder. Replace whatever "default.txt" file was in there if the folder existed already. Make a backup of the file if you like, before replacing.
4- Restart Mendeley Desktop and test the journal abbreviations in Word/LibreOffice by using a style that HAS journal abbreviations (like Nature).
5- Smile.
Note: If you can improve the default.txt file with more abbreviations, feel free to do it and post-it!
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Anonymous
commented
Not only nature, most of the journal titles are not abbreviated. This issue needs to be fixed as soon as possible. When we send articles for publishing, we need to type in references in the form it is indexed in a particular database.
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Anonymous
commented
Problem Solved
I was having the same annoying problem, and a finally found this post by Mauricio Arenas with the valuable link to download the abbreviation list directly from the NCBI and it worked juuuust perfectly. Truly grateful to you Mauricio and all the other people trying to solve this -
FGV
commented
I've tried the suggested work around but it doesn't work with the synced bibtex file. A couple of suggestions:
- a default abbrev list should be provided by Mendeley (just a merge of all public abbrev databases)
- abbrev should be case insensitive (Mendeley seems to have a preference for lower case)
- clear distinction between journal and journal abbreviation. I'd say the first would be retrieved from the metadata and the second converted from the abbrev list.
- the bibtex file should include the journal abbrev (not the journal name) -
LaurensWitter
commented
@Gaston Longtarin, @osm @mendeley: Problem solved via superquick and complete @mendeleysupport on twitter!
Turned out my default.txt was actually called default.txt.txt! Stupid windows not showing extensions..... (and of course stupid me for not realizing this!!)Thanks!
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Gaston Longtarin
commented
@LaurensWitter | Switch to EndNote, Papers, Sente or whatever reference manager that can deal properly with journal name abbreviations or waste your time with Mendeley.
Do not expect support from them. You can read below part of an E-mail response I received in 2011 (about Mendeley Desktop 0.9.9). It is just pathetic that meanwhile they did not managed to find a solution.
Good luck!
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Hi Gaston, Thanks a lot for this feedback. We certainly weren't trying to mislead but we have a lot of different work on our plates and sometimes things get postponed, this feature in particular hasn't been given the priority it deserves. We will implement a method to handle journal abbreviations properly soon, but in the meantime there is a hack which allows users to enter custom journal abbreviations. -
Omar Mian
commented
You mention you are using an edited style. Have you tried styles that you have not edited yourself? J Neurosci, J Physiol, and J Neurophysiol styles, obtained from "Get more styles" all produce abbreviated reference lists for me.
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LaurensWitter
commented
@osm: unfortunately, yes. They do match and yes, there is a TAB character between the full name and abbreviation.
I also tried uninstalling the word plugin, restarting, installing plugin, updating mendeley, restarting, uninstalling, restarting, installing. No result.....
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Omar Mian
commented
@LaurnsWitter: It is working fine for me (Mendeley 1.8, Word 2010 32-bit)
Do the case for the titles in your mendeley library match those in your abbreviation list? I let mendeley autopopulate the citation information when I add a pdf to the library. This results in sentence case for journal titles (i.e. "The journal of physiology" instead of "The Journal of Physiology"). My abbreviations file must contain "The journal of physiology". "The Journal of Physiology" does not work. Also, do you have a TAB character between full journal name and abbreviated name?
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LaurensWitter
commented
Right, I tried everything suggested. Still not working. Using Mendeley 1.8 (also didn't work in 1.7.1) with Word 2007 on Win 7 32 bit (@Pentaquark).
I have a folder journalAbbreviations (also didn't work with JournalAbbreviations)
textfile default.txt is very short since I just need to submit a paper with correct abbreviations:
Journal of Neuroscience J. Neurosci.
The Journal of Neuroscience J. Neurosci.
Journal of Physiology J. Physiol.
The Journal of Physiology J. Physiol.
Journal of Neurophysiology J. Neurophysiol.
The Journal of Neurophysiology J. Neurophysiol.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U S AI use an edited style J neuroscience with form="short" in <text variable....> under the bibiliography section in the xml file.
What's going wrong here? I'm really completely and utterly lost at this moment.....
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Pentaquark
commented
I have been unable to make the journal abbreviations work, unfortunately. I am currently on WinXP, Word 2010 14.0, and Mendeley 1.8-dev2. I created the journalAbbreviations directory under C:\Documents and Settings\XXXXXXX\Local Settings\Application Data\Mendeley Ltd\Mendeley Desktop\ and created the 'default.txt' with the pastebin file as noted under Mr. Knight's comment on http://support.mendeley.com/customer/portal/questions/124632-how-to-enable-journal-abbreviations. I'm working with Elsevier (with titles) and everything I'm citing are journal articles. These should be caught under the final 'Else' conditional for the bibliography. However, when I change the 'container_title' variable to 'short', the journal titles still show as the verbose version. I've tried various combinations of uninstalling the MS Word plugin and updating/restarting both Word and Mendeley. Are there any other suggestions? I'm concerned it could be an XP issue since I would think most users are on 7 by now, but that's just a guess.
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Naveen
commented
This is an important feature, the work around does work but it actually needs to be integrated into Mendeley by default.
Also the software doesnt recognise the name of the Journal as such, Mendeley always
imports the name of the Journal from the library in italics, this is a real big problem.
<http://www.library.uq.edu.au/faqs/endnote/medical_2010.txt> THIS LINK HAS NAME OF ABBREVIATIONS CAN BE USED BY COPY AND PAST IN THE WORKAROUND default.txt file....
Does help a little -
AdminMendeley
(Admin, Mendeley)
commented
Kei Shirata - there was a slight change to how escape characters were handled. This has since been fixed in 1.7.1, so upgrading to 1.7.1 or later will fix the problem. If you still have problems, contact Support.
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Daniel Soudry commented
Dear Admin,
Can you please answer Kei Shirata's question? What is the solution?
Also, the link posted above (http://support.mendeley.com/customer/portal/questions/179297-how-to-enable-journal-abbreviations-?new=179297) seen to be broken.This is a really important feature...
Thanks,
Daniel -
Kei Shirata
commented
Dear Admin
Could you point towards how this was solved in 1.7.1?
What exactly do I need to do? -
AdminMendeley
(Admin, Mendeley)
commented
Hello mis,
The issue with journal abbreviations was fixed in 1.7.1 (released on Monday).
