Linking to local files

As the space to upload files to your RefWorks account is limited, people sometimes ask how to link to local files. Especially, the hardcore Endnote users have grown accustomed to collecting large numbers of article PDF's on their hard drives. With RefWorks being a fully webbased service and with RefWorks supporting the UBUlink, linking to local files might seem odd or unneccessary. On the other hand if you work at the same location most of the time links to local files are safe, fast and easy to use. And in some cases local files may be the only thing you have (e.g. your own unpublished papers).

Anyway, it is good to know that linking to local files is possible in RefWorks. But bear in mind that in many cases, because of safety measures built into Windows it is not possible to open files on your C:\ drive from a webpage. So you have to put your files somewhere else. You can use other drives or partitions (H:\ or U:\ or whatever letter the partition has been assigned). If your harddrive only has one partition, it may not be possible to link to local files from RefWorks.

The link you add to your records consists of a standard prefix, the path and the filename, like this:

file://H:\MYFILES\ARTICLES\Einstein-1905.pdf

The file:// bit is the standard prefix and necassary for the link to work.

Further I think this works easiest if you:

1) Use a user field (which can be renamed to "local file" or something like that) for storing the link to your file. Of course you can also use the link-field or URL-field, but this way you prevent your local links from showing up in bibliographic output with some output styles. The link to the file then shows in full view.

2) Use a global edit on all references to fill that user field with a standerd path to the files (e.g. file:\\/H:MYFILES/ARTICLES) on a 'non-C' harddrive/partition. That way you only have to copy/paste the filename and append it to the field. Of course for new records, you still have to add file:\\/H:MYFILES/LITERATURE part manually.

3) Avid RefWorks users might want to force RefWorks to show the links in the reference lists within your Refworks folder, to avoid having to open the full record view. To do this you can adapt an output style solely for this purpose by adding that user field and use the customize page to make that style one that you can use for presentation within Refworks.

This might all seem complicated, but for some it is certainly worth the effort.