I am not sure if I can answer all your questions satisfactory. Maybe the best would be a more detailed explanation what I was asking for and then come back to your questions:
In Zotero I have many records without files attached. Most of the time these records are of Zotero type "book" or "bookSection". So these two types are the most important types for me out of the list you suggested. That would a nice start to begin with.
What I want is to import the Zotero metadata for these records into Calibre as it is done with the records which do have files attached. The records of all different Zotero types are downloaded into the export .csv file but only those which have a .pdf (or other file type?) attached are incorporated into the import procedure. Would I have metadata even for empty books in my Calibre database I can work with them in Calibre after they are imported from Zotero (add more metadata, organize them according to my Calibre system or exchange data with Goodreads).
Hopefully it is now better understandable was I want. Now to your questions:
[1] and [2]: No, this was not was I meant. (As fas as I understood the questions…)
[3],[4],[5]: Again this is not what I asked for. This could be helpful later on, when the Calibre database is already populated and some changes were made (either in Zotero or in Calibre).
[6]: YES!
[7]: As I said: For me the most important types would be "book" and "bookSection". Maybe it would make sense also for "conferencePaper", "journalArticle", "magazineArticle", "newspaperArticle", "report" and especially "thesis". As far as I am concerned: I think I do not want a duplicate of the Zotero database in Calibre. I just want Calibre my primary source for management of books (and parts of books) and Zotero for my citations. (But see my correction later on, when I inspected some concrete examples of the exported .csv file.)
But I haven't thought through the possibility to have all Zotero types included into Calibre. This would open up the management for all types of reference material in Calibre. I am lacking experience with Calibre if this would be a good idea and if Calibre is suited for this task. Clear enough it would add some new use cases to Calibre for which it was originally not build for.
[8]: This boils down to the thoughts above: Should Calibre be used for the managements of material besides books? (But it turned out in a detailed inspection that some of my .html files link to webpages where the articles could be downloaded. See my final paragraph.)
I will add the same .csv-file we have already used for finding my import problem. But I have generated this file new from scratch today.
BTW: I noticed that ZMI is taking all my files from the CSV Import Directory but does not archive them after processing in the CSV Archive Directory.
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Some exemplary notes to the attached file:
- An example of a book record which is not imported is Weinert, Franz (Line 33 with the headline of column names included). It is a book but has no file attached.
- Number 12: Anderson Terry and Dron Jon is a Journal Article which has a HTML Reference to a website (http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890) where the file could be downloaded. Even EPUB-Format is provided. After my discussion above I would not have included this record, but actually it turns out it would be nice to include it!
- Number 13: This record has a .html file attached refering to chapter one of google book: https://books.google.at/books?id=Rif...page&q&f=false. So again this would be a valuable information which could be used for further processing inside Calibre.
So after a more detailed inspection it turned out that "Yes, it would make sense to import all detailed information into Calibre". Maybe the best way would be to give the user a selection what Zotero types metadata should be imported into Calibre?