198 comments

• Anonymous commented  ·  December 2, 2011 2:52 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Yes, the lack of native abbreviation functionality is nearly a deal breaker. The workaround is also inadequate given the problems of case sensitivity, differences in journal abbreviations, and differences in the inclusion of periods in the abbreviations.

• Michael Hendricks commented  ·  November 30, 2011 12:51 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  My god, is this still not a functioning built in feature? I can't believe Mendeley pretends their reference styles match journal styles when the titles are not properly formatted... I tell everyone I know to avoid Mendeley until this is fixed. But at least there's an iPhone app, right? The priorities here are wack.

• rozana commented  ·  November 23, 2011 6:40 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  please sharing research journal

• widya commented  ·  November 22, 2011 6:12 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  please sharing journal

• osm commented  ·  November 20, 2011 3:48 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Anonymous: Why do you need the citeproc-js folder?

  Anyway you can get to citeproc-js by right clicking mendeley desktop.app and showing package contents or by using an app that is capable of searching within packages, e.g. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/easyfind/id411673888?mt=12

• Anonymous commented  ·  November 20, 2011 3:31 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  I'm sorry but I canno't locate <Mendeley_desktop_running_directory>/citeproc-js folder under OSX Lion. Any idea?

• osm commented  ·  November 15, 2011 4:07 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  I am noticing some imperfect behaviour of the journal abbreviations feature when using copy and past (C&P) or drag and drop (D&D) from Mendeley desktop. When MD is launched, C&P or D&D initially ignores journal abbreviations. You first have to switch to another style and do a C&P or D&D using that other style before journal abbreviations starts to work (MD for Mac 1.1.2).

• DBgit commented  ·  November 15, 2011 1:31 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Please make the script for journal abbreviation NOT case sensitive! It is totally unusable in the present format as at least 50% of my references use the wrong case in the journal title (even after using a DOI lookup).

  This is the last limitation of Mendeley that prevents me from removing endnote from my computer...

• Alexandru Tudor Constantinescu commented  ·  October 31, 2011 9:14 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  One more suggestion: as sometimes we have the DOI handy, but importing directly via DOI leads to the aforementioned problems, and sometimes no abstract, although available, it may be worth thinking about a way to retrieve from PubMed by using the DOI (and not PMID).

  One simple way (from the user point of view) to implement this would be to allow inserting a DOI in the PMID field. When hitting search, if it looks like a DOI (two digits, period, some other stuff), then search PubMed not by PMID but by AID (article identifier). Once found, the fields are populated as usual, and the DOI is moved to the DOI field and the PMID is filled with the PMID, instead of the pasted DOI.

• Alexandru Tudor Constantinescu commented  ·  October 28, 2011 3:40 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Bump!
  Why in the world does the script have to be case-sensitive? That it has to be a perfect match is clear, but the case-sensitive is a PITA. There are plenty of instances when importing into Mendeley leads to a journal name in Title Case.

  Two examples:
  10.1111/j.1365-2133.1970.tb12440.x and
  10.1016/j.jaci.2003.12.583
  Using Mendeley Desktop -> Add Documents -> Add entry manually... -> paste DOI and lookup you get the journals as
  Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and, respectively
  British Journal of Dermatology

  I don't think there's much Mendely can do about, since I presume that's how Elsevier and Wiley serve the citation; importing via PMID renders the journal names as it should "The Journal of allergy...." or "British journal...".
  Obviously, the first case does not get abbreviated, the second gets.

  I have about 500 references which should be changed now, some since they were not properly imported and others since they were exported from another ref mgmgt software as RIS with Title Case.

  So, why not making the script case-insensitive, or at least providing an option/switch to make it such??

• Jonathan Genest commented  ·  October 25, 2011 5:38 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Thanks alot! It's a difficult way of doing it, but it works. It would be nice if the script was not case sensitive.

• Gaston Longtarin commented  ·  October 24, 2011 4:38 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Hi stef,

  Are you using your own list of abbreviations or one of the IsoAbbr or MedAbbr files that I provided? For entries that are not properly abbreviated, check that the journal name is properly spelled in each entry of your library since the script is case sensitive. In order that journal names are properly abbreviated, it is important that the full journal name in your Mendeley Desktop library perfectly matches the full journal name from your list of abbreviations.

  If you are using one of the IsoAbbr or MedAbbr lists, you can simply update problematic entries in Mendeley Desktop by clicking on the 'Lookup' icon next to PMID field. It will ensure that the full journal name is correctly spelled in your library and can be properly abbreviated by the script. If you are using your own list of abbreviations, then you either have to modify manually the full journal name in your library or in your list in order that they are both identical.

  Let me know if you managed to fix the problem...

• stef commented  ·  October 24, 2011 9:00 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Hi, I have problems with the procedure suggested by Steve.ridout to get journal abbreviations. I followed all steps. However, when I compile the list of references in word, journal titles are abbreviated in some cases, but not in others. Moreover, the same journal title is abbreviated in some references, but not in ohers. Any help is appreciated.

• Larry Gray commented  ·  October 4, 2011 11:02 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  why isn't this done already?

• KH commented  ·  October 1, 2011 7:33 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Definitely needed!

• prabhu commented  ·  September 26, 2011 8:09 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  journal abbreviations and manual editing of citation

• osm commented  ·  September 20, 2011 12:55 p.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Following the last couple of comments, I hope when Mendeley get around to implementing journal abbreviations properly, they make it easy to switch between different abbreviation lists from within Mendeley desktop.

• ebioman commented  ·  September 20, 2011 9:17 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Hi Gaston
  Thanks for the quick reply, I have to admit shamefully that it was indeed that easy - the iso file did contain it with the stops.
  I am actually less worried about the editors than my supervisor who is constantly complaining about my wrong formations :P

• Gaston Longtarin commented  ·  September 20, 2011 7:35 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Hi ebioman,
  To which journal do you want to submit your manuscript? Have you tried both default_iso.txt (IsoAbbr) and default_med.txt (MedAbbr) files? Because IsoAbbr contains much more abbreviations with full stops than MedAbbr (PubMed).

  If you are not satisfied with the abbreviation format provided, you have to edit the abbreviation text file. It cannot be done by editing the csl file (you cannot modify the inner part of a field like 'journal name' from a csl file).

  However, I would not care too much about this aspect. I already submitted papers that where prepared with EndNote and PubMed entries (MedAbbr) while the journal required IsoAbbr. Papers were all accepted for publication and the journal production team corrected all the abbreviations manually...

• ebioman commented  ·  September 20, 2011 6:08 a.m.  ·  Flag as inappropriateFlag as inappropriate  ·  Delete

  Hi
  Thanks for the help, solves a lot of problems I am facing writing a paper right now. One big question following this up: All the abbreviations are without any points, pretty unusual. Any hints how to overcome this ? Do I have to add points in the abbreviations text file (would be stupid since different journals expect different abbrevs) or do I have to change the csl file ?