Re: zotero (or mendeley) integration with org

[Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

"Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:

> Is it possible to use org babel to extract bibtex entries from file of
> notes to a *.bib file? 
>

Yes, you can use babel's tangling facilities to extract bibtex entries
enclosed in source blocks.

#+begin_src bibtex :tangle history.bib
  @InCollection{levi2001_microhistory,
    author =       {Levi, Giovanni},
    title =        {On Microhistory},
    editor =       {Peter Burke},
    booktitle =    {New Perspectives on Historical Writing},
    address =      {University Park, PA},
    publisher =    {Penn State Press},
    year =         2001,
  }
#+end_src

Calling org-babel-tangle-file will put this entry in the file
history.bib.

> The stumbling point for me in saving bibtex sources is I don't see a
> way to use the file as a bibtex *.bib file so as to use that as the
> direct source for the publication.  Perhaps this could be automated
> with babel?

There are a few other routes. 

1. Bibtex discards anything outside of an entry so you could symlink
   your org file to something with a bib extension (e.g., notes.org ->
   notes.bib) and simply point latex/bibtex to that file.

2. You could instruct emacs to edit bib files with orgmode and use babel
   and source blocks to enter items
   (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist 
	     '("\\.\\(org\\|bib\\)$" . org-mode))

3. AFAICT, reftex is blissfully indifferent to non-bibtex data, so you
   could use reftex to query your org files for citation keys. Then, you
   could use reftex to generate a proper bib file with all entries cited
   in your paper.

Best,
Matt