If you use a spreadsheet or database program

If you keep your reference collection in a spreadsheet program like: Excel, Quatro Pro, Lotus 123, or in a desktop database program like: Access, Paradox, Approach, File Maker Pro, etc. You can import your references into a Biblioscape database as a tab or comma delimited file, but you will need to do some data massaging in a spreadsheet first. The following example shows you how to prepare data for importing using Excel. If you still have problems importing as a tab or comma delimited file, you can email us for help.

 

1.   If you use a desktop database program like Access, Approach, or Paradox, the first step is to export the table as an Excel file. Go to "File | Export", then select "Excel (*.xls)" as file format.

2.   Start Excel, open the reference data file. The first row has to be the data field name. The following table shows you all the data field names you can use.
 

Field Name

Type

Length

Abstract

M

240

Accession_number

A

20

Address

A

255

Attachment

A

255

Authors

A

255

Availability

A

50

Call_number

A

30

Categories

A

100

Country

A

30

Custom_1

A

255

Custom_2

A

255

Custom_3

A

100

Custom_4

A

100

Custom_5

A

50

Custom_6

A

50

Date_freeform

A

20

Date_input

D

 

Date_modified

D

 

Date_pub

D

 

Description

A

150

Edition

A

20

Extent_work

A

20

File_as

A

30

Internal

A

20

Isbn_issn

A

20

Keywords

M

240

Label

A

60

Language

A

30

Last_post

A

22

Location

A

150

Modified_by

A

20

Notes

M

240

Number

A

20

Page_end

A

20

Page_start

A

20

Place_pub

A

100

Priority

A

10

Publisher

A

150

Quat_authors

A

255

Quat_title

A

255

Ref_doc

M

240

Ref_ID

I

 

Ref_mark

A

1

Ref_misc

M

240

Ref_read

A

1

Ref_type

A

30

Ref_type_ID

S

 

Ref_user

A

30

Reprint

A

12

Sec_authors

A

255

Sec_title

A

255

Section

A

20

Subject

A

100

Tert_authors

A

255

Tert_title

A

255

Title

A

255

Title_short

A

100

Type_work

A

100

URL

A

255

Volume

A

20

Web_post_hide

A

1

Work_reviewed

A

100

Year_pub

S

 


You should then use Excel to make sure the data satisfy the requirement depending on the data field. All the 3 date fields "Date_pub", "Date_input", and "Date_modified" have to be in the format of "5/21/1998". The data for "Year_pub" have to be an integer. For all the authors fields, individual author must be separated by "; ", Individual keywords in the "Keywords" field has also have to be separated by "; ".

You may have to break pages "12-23" into two separate column in Excel. You should insert the blank column first after the "Pages" column, select the "Pages" column, then go to menu command "Data | Text to Columns...".
 

3.   After massaging the data to meet all the requirements, go to the menu command "File | Save As...", select "Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt)" as file format.

4.   Start Biblioscape, go to the menu command "File | Import", select the importing file first, go to "Delimited" tab, select "Tab" as "Data fields separated by". Uncheck the "To folder" button. Click "Start" to import.