Special characters miscoded in RIS file exported from Reference Manager

When exporting a Reference Manager database to an RIS file, all non-ASCII-characters in a data field are either replaced or removed.

For example,

Sicherung der Bildqualität in röntgendiagnostischen Betrieben. Teil 150: Abnahmeprüfung nach RöV an medizinischen Röntgeneinrichtungen für Aufnahme und Durchleuchtung

is presented in the RIS file as

Sicherung der Bildqualit„t in r”ntgendiagnostischen Betrieben. Teil 150: Abnahmeprfung nach R”V an medizinischen R”ntgeneinrichtungen fr Aufnahme und Durchleuchtung

What’s worse, URLs to file attachments are “enriched” with spurious characters.

It is not possible to revert this loss by search/replace. Thus, migrating Reference Manager databases to other systems in a non anglo-saxon institution is virtually impossible.

Hello Martin Gränicher,

Please note that Reference Manager is not Unicode compliant and the Export to RIS was not designed to handle Special, Extended or Non-English characters. 

However, as workaround you may follow the instruction below:

  1. Open Reference Manager 12.
  2. Click on File > Print.
  3. Please choose “References to include” is set to “All references in list”. The Destination should be “File”. The Output Style should be “EndNote Export”.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Choose the File name and the “Save as type” should be “Microsoft Word (Rich Text Format)”.

Now, open the File which is created. Now, please follow the instruction below:

  1. Go to File > Save As.
  2. Change the File name and choose the “Save as type” to be "Plain Text (*.txt).

This should help you to retain the special or extended characters. 

Sincerely,
Karthik
________________________________________
Karthik Ravi
Product Support Analyst

Thomson Reuters