BibTeX files may be used by many referencing software such as EndNote and Zotero. Editing BibTex files however can be difficult. For example, if you export a .bib (BibTeX) file from the Web of Science database (for bibliometric analysis in Bibliometrix) and want to find and replace variations of words, then you may not be able to use your referencing software to perform this find and replace. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to import into most referencing software, make changes, and then export as .bib filetype if you need the abstract for natural language processing (NLP) or other analysis.
Fortunately, Notepad++ can be used to find and replace words in your BibTeX file easily. A word of warning however; if you merely find and replace all instances of a word in your .bib file you may make your analysis invalid. For example, say I want to replace the word sensemaking with sense-making, if sensemaking is used as a term in the references field in the .bib file, then I may inadvertently manipulate any analysis of the references in the file.
Time needed: 10 minutes.
These instructions describe how to use Notepad++ software to find and replace a word or phrase in a specific field in a BibTeX file.
- Open your .bib file in Notepad++
Download Notepad++ (if not already installed) and open your .bib file in Notepad++.
- Open the replace menu in Notepad++
In Notepad++, click “Search” in the menu and then “Replace”.
- Search and replace in select fields
If you want to search and replace in the title field, select the “Wrap around” and “Regular expression” options. In the Find what field enter
^(title={.*)your-search(},)$
(change your-search to the word or term you want to replace).
In Replace with, enter$1new-word$2
(replace new-word with your replacement word.
In the Find what field amend title to be any other field in which you want to find and replace (e.g. author).
If you want to find and replace text in a specific BibTex field then:
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