Python script to export papers from a specific folder in Mendeley Desktop in Linux, including the file(s), to a static HTML file. Tested in Ubuntu 12.04.
Usage:
- First, save the papers you want to export to a folder in Mendeley Desktop.
- Rename the file configfile.py.dist to configfile.py and add your email registered to Mendeley.
- Run: ./exportMendeley.py
- Select the ID of the folder with the papers.
The script creates a folder 'html' with two html files:
- index_unordered.html - With the data as it came out of the database
- index.html - With the data ordered in alphabetical order (without any checks, so there may be mistakes)
The results are saved in the format:
Authors. Year. Title. Journal: pages. [doi] [PDF files]
Inside the 'html' folder there is a 'files' folder that holds the pdf files associated with each paper.
Why this? I tried the Mendeley API but could not figure it out but for the most basic things. There is little info and examples, not that I an such a good programmer, but still...). For what I wanted, which was to export some papers to a website with their PDFs and update it a few times a year, using the API seemed like overkill. I found that the Mendeley Desktop application uses a sqlite database, which I can easily read and parse.