Incorporating other file types

[AStoneMonkey]

Hello,

I am very interested in the use of Citavi for scientific research and would like to be able to incoporate other file formats like Word, Excel, Power Point, and other file formats into Citavi.

Is this possible?

I am curretnly exploring your products use as a scientific notebook and I am looking for some of the features of a OneNote like tools that incorporates the bibiliography tools like Citavi, Zotero, or Mendeley.

AStoneMonkey

[Hugo Muckelbauer]

Hello AStoneMonkey,

Citavi 3 is able to display a couple of different formats within the programme itself, like MS Word, Excel & Powerpoint files, OpenOffice Writer & Calc files, PDF files and diverse picture file types. Citavi provides a link to all other file types, so that a click on the provided link to these files starts the associated programme (if there is an association of the particular file type in Windows).

Cheers,

Hugo

[AStoneMonkey]

Hello Hugo,

Thanks for your quick reply! As I understand what you are suggesting is that links can be placed in Citavi? And these links will go outside of Citavi to view them?

I am looking for a bit of clearification concerning the ability of Citavi to view other program types. I have attepted to load several formats (i.e. Word, Excel, and Power Point files) using the import feature that is provided. The import files feature doesn't support these files loading into Citavi. I am guessing that would be due Citavi only wanting to deal with PDF files.

[Hugo Muckelbauer]

Hi,

One of Citavi's strength is to manage references, not files. Therefore, you first have to create reference, then you can attach a file to this reference. However, references are not limited to academic texts, but also comprise maps, audio or video documents, music, software and files (the reference types are listed in the menu "References>New reference by hand").

You can attach files to a reference by selecting "Local file" in the pull-down menu Locations in the "Locations" section in the "Tasks&Locations" tab.

The way you tried doesn't work as Citavi tries to import references not files. In case of the "PDF file import", Citavi tries to import information derived from the PDF file to create a reference and to attach this PDF file to the reference (the file then can be seen in the right pane of the reference editor and edited in the "Task&Locations" tab under section "Locations").

[AStoneMonkey]

Good Morning,

Thank you for the clearification. Your explanation makes perfect sense! I will need to explore your softrware environment a bit more to better understand it's features. Would you happen to have any written manual that might look at to be helpful in this effort?

I have been exploring the use of Citavi and comparing your software package to several others out there to better understand the use of your reference tool. I am coming from a laboratory environment and I am interested in Citavi's use for coordinating and sharing refereneces with collaborators in the laboratory. Are there any features for collaborating or sharing libraries from a SharePoint Server?

Cheers,
Jim

[Antonio Tejada]

Hi Jim,

Full English documentation is forthcoming.

integration with SharePoint is not planned, but soon after the release of Citavi 3.0, we will release the workgroup version of Citavi, called Citavi Team. You just put the project on a file server and multiple users can access it at the same time.

Regards,
Antonio

[Antonio Tejada]

I am very interested in the use of Citavi for scientific research and would like to be able to incoporate other file formats like Word, Excel, Power Point, and other file formats into Citavi.

This should be no problem -- for file types which Citavi doesn't provide native support for, the Local file and Image or file quotation features both use Windows' own preview modules, so at least in theory, any file that can be previewed in Windows Explorer should also appear in the preview pane.

Antonio

[AStoneMonkey]

Good Morning Antonio,

Thank you for your comments. I am not sure what server configuration that you are thinking about but there are some huge advantages of the SharePoint Server since many large pharmaceutical corporations are consolidating on this approach to distributed file handling.

Further more a huge untapped need for scientific lab note book like software is opening horizon for opportunities for folks like yourself. This is because the whole bibliographic tool domain has gone a radical evolution from index cards (as in my graduate school days), to RefManager, EndNotes, Zotero, Mendeley, OneNote, and Citavi.

All of this is parallel to the the electronic note book efforts from CambridgeSoft E-Notebook and Symyx Electronic Note Book. I don't know if you are aware for these other activities but your recent release of Citavi 3.0 places you in an interesting position for the next generation of Knowledge Management Tools and Collaborative Tools.

Cheers,
JIm

[Antonio Tejada]

Hi Jim,

at this point, the workgroup functionality in Citavi is implemented as simple file-level concurrent access: you put the project files on a file server where the intended users have access. (And of course where others do not!) My limited knowledge of SharePoint makes me think it does do "ordinary" file sharing, but whether WebDAV can handle open databases I don't know.

Thank you for the input regarding lab notetaking. That is indeed an interesting aspect which we will consider.

Regards,
Antonio