Import papers

ReLiS allows you to add references manually or import a list of them from CSV, BibTeX or EndNote files.

Import BibTeX references

Make sure the file is encoded in ANSI or Western Windows. No funny characters should be present. Also, make sure each reference is well-formatted using the format: 

@type{key, field={value} }
  • type can be any valid BibTeX entry type, such as article, inproceedings, inbook, etc.
  • key uniquely identifies the reference. It is optional, but the comma after the curly bracket is mandatory. So @article{, field={value}} is also valid. If the key is not provided, ReLiS will generate a unique one automatically based on the last name of the first author and the year of publication.
  • field can be a standard BibTeX field or not. Make sure you have the abstract field (to be displayed when screening). You may also wish to have the doi or paper fields to display the link to the online article.
  • value can be the enclosed in curly brackets { } or double quotes " ".
  • Note that any white space or new lines between these keywords will be ignored.

Here is the complete specification of the BibTeX format.

Import EndNote references

To import references from EndNote, you need to use a special export style in EndNote: BiBler Export. This export style ships with the tool BiBler. You can either install it (Windows only) or simply download the export style directly from here.

With EndNote already installed on your computer, simply open BiBler Export.ens and save. It will then permanently be installed in your EndNote application.

Depending on which digital library you downloaded the references from, you may need to ensure that the exported file is a well-formatted BibTeX file. See above for more information.

Import references from EndNote to ReLiS on Windows or Mac

These steps assume all your references are in EndNote and that you have removed duplicates. We assume your library is called MyReferences.enl.

  1. In your EndNote library, export all the references using the BiBler Export style. This creates a file MyReferences.txt
  2. Open MyReferences.txt in Notepad++ or TextEdit
  3. Replace all @article{ by @article{,
  4. Replace all % by \%
  5. Replace any funny looking characters by their regular counterparts
    6. **The following assumes you are running under Windows. It may be done on Mac, you should check how.**
  6. Open MyReferences.txt in Notepad++
  7. Click Encoding > Convert to UTF-8
  8. Save the file as MyReferences.bib
  9. Open BiBler
  10. Click File > Open, choose MyReferences.bib, choose the option EndNote file
  11. Save
    12. **Now you can go back to your Mac**
  12. In Chrome (not Safari), go to your project in ReLiS
  13. In the menu, click Import Papers > Import BibTeX
  14. Choose the file MyReferences.bib
  15. Upload

This may take a while depending on the number of references you are importing. When the import is complete, make sure the right number of references was imported. If not, then this means that there are still some funny characters left in MyReferences.bib. Check what the last imported reference is in ReLiS and go back to MyReferences.bib to correct the funny characters. You can continue at step 12.

Authors and venues

When you import references in your project, ReLiS automatically indexes all the authors of every reference. This may be useful if you want to retrieve some statistics on the authors. In the home page of your project, go to the Authors menu. You can find the list of all the authors or only the first authors of each reference.

ReLiS also automatically indexes the venue of every reference. This corresponds to the conference or the journal where each reference is published as well as the publication year. This may be useful if you want to retrieve some statistics about the publication venues or publication year of the references. In the home page of your project, go to the Venues menu. More specifically, here is the field of the venue indexed for each BibTeX entry type:

  • article: journal (if the reference is an article published in a journal)
  • inbook: title (if the reference is an chapter published in a book)
  • incollection, inproceedings: booktitle (if the reference is an article published in a conference proceedings)