MendeleyRefsImport

A Sigil Plugin

Imports Mendeley note/ref items into epubs

Requirements

Plugin Type: Edit

MIT Licence(OSI)

Minimum Sigil requirement: v0.9.3 or higher

Python Requirements: Python 3.4+ (Bundled or External)

OS Requirements: Windows, Linux or OSX

*** Tested on Windows 7, 8 & 10 only ***

Current Version: "0.1.0"

Installation

* Select Manage Plugins from the Plugins menu. In the dialog box, select either the Bundled Python or the External Python(Python 3.4+ should be installed on your computer to run this plugin externally).

* Click Add Plugin and select MendeleyRefsImport _vXXX.zip. This will load and install the plugin into Sigil, which you can then run by selecting Plugins > Edit > MendeleyRefsImport

Description

This plugin can import ref/note items from a Mendeley xml export file which can then be appended to any user-selected chapter or reference section in the epub. (See Plugin Run for details). This plugin also gives users much more formatting control over the imported note/ref items.(see Formatting Options)

With this plugin, all ref/note formatting is solely based on Chicago Style(CMOS) formatting and data arrangements. But you should still have considerable leeway to further format your ref/notes as you prefer using the Formatting Options dialog.

There are only 3 ref source styles available with this plugin: 'Journal Article', 'Web Page' and 'Book'. If any of the other source style is used in Menedey then this will generate plugin errors.(See Caveat for more details)

Formatting Options(via dialog)

This dialog allows the user to further format all imported ref/note items in the following way:

* Remove all italics formatting -- Removes italic formatting from all note/ref items.

* Remove all hyperlink formatting -- Removes hyperlink formatting from all note/ref items.

* Delete all hyperlinks -- Deletes hyperlinks from all note/ref items.

* Use a smaller font size for all entries -- Use a font size of 10.5pt for all note/ref text

* Add text justification for all entries -- Adds text justify for all note/ref entries

* Add consecutive numbering to all entries -- Consecutively numbers all ref/note entries

* Add superscript numbering - Adds consecutive superscript numbering to all entries

* Add superscript numbering with brackets - Add consecutive superscript numbering with brackets to all entries

Caveat

* This plugin will only output author-date, fullnote or concise note styles in Chicago Style(CMOS).

* The plugin user will only be able to use 3 of Mendeley's ref source styles which are: 'Journal Article', 'Web Page' and 'Book'. This gives a total of 9 styles that can be used with author-date, fullnote or concise note styles. Mendeley has a total of about 19 ref source styles that can be used. But for most of the other styles like 'Newspaper', 'Magazine', 'Patent' etc -- these can also easily be found online, so using the 'Web Page' source style for these should suffice. If I included the 19 Mendeley source styles in the plugin then that would also mean I would have to individually format 57 separate styles in plugin code. I've determined that this was overkill and unnecessary, so that's why I've limitted the ref source styles to only 3 styles.

* Unfortunately, Mendeley does not export the 'Last Modified Date' or the 'Access Date' data fields to it's xml file. So, for Web Pages only, please be aware that the current date(today's date) will always be inserted as the Access Date for all ref/notes derived form Web Pages.

Plugin Run

Adding Mendeley notes at the end of a chapter or creating a new reference section at the end of your epub

* In the Mendeley app, select all required note items using click/shift-click.

* Then right-click and choose Export.

* In the Export Selected Documents dialogue, choose save as EndNote XML - EndNote v8, X1 or X2 (*.xml) and save this file to your desktop.

*If you are appending notes to a chapter, then be sure to click and select the relevant Sigil file for appending the notes and then just run the plugin

* If you are creating a new endnote or reference section at the end of your epub, then you should first create a new blank file by right clicking on the Text directory in Sigil's Book Browser and selecting Add Blank HTML File. Be sure to click and select this blank file and then just run the plugin.

This plugin might also work with files exported from the EndNote app, provided that the refs/notes from EndNote are exported in xml (from EndNote v8 X1 or X2). I haven't been able to test this because I don't have EndNote on my computer.