Complete information using online databases

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JabRef can fetch automatically additional information about your entries. It can even get the publication file!​
To find identifiers (arxiv, DOI), select the entries and go to the menu Lookup → search document identifier online.​
To find the document related to an entry, select the entry and to the menu Lookup → search full text documents online.​
To complete bibliographic information based on DOI or ISBN, continue reading the section below.
Completing information based on DOI or ISBN
JabRef can help you complement your entries from their DOI or ISBN.
In the entry table, right-click on the entry to complement, and select the menu Get bibliographic data from DOI/ISBN/... (obviously, this feature is disabled if your entry does not have a DOI/ISBN.). Alternatively, you can open the entry editor, and in the General tab, click on the button Get bibliographic data from DOI:
This opens the window Merge entry with DOI information:
The fields of the original entry and of the information gathered from the DOI are displayed side-by-side.
The differences between the two sides can be emphasized through the drop-down menu located at the upper left-hand corner of the window. Five ways of displaying the differences are offered:
plain text: as-is, no emphasis
show diff - word: differences are shown on the right side.
Full words are struck out in red if they are removed from the original entry or underlined in blue if they are added to the information collected from the DOI.
show diff - character: differences are shown on the right side.
Individual characters are struck out in red or underlined in blue as above.
show symmetric diff - word: differences are shown on both sides.
Words are underlined and displayed in color.
show symmetric diff - character: differences are shown on both sides.
Characters are underlined and displayed in color.
In the central column, a radio button allows you to select which side to keep for each field: the left side, the right side, or none. By default, the original entry (left) is kept, and any fields not present in the original entry are obtained from the information collected from the DOI.
Finally, after selecting which fields to keep, you can decide to Merge entries. Alternatively, you can press Cancel.
See also: Find duplicates, Merge entries​
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