Getting Started

Dear Sir,
I am a PhD student and using Vosviewer for my paper on a systematic literature review on tourism using Scopus data. I also want to apply the main path analysis using Pajek and use the input data from Vosviewer. I am facing problems with making the input file, I couldn't find any useful tutorial or manual which shows how to exactly do this. I have tried extracting the network data (citation network) into 3 available pajek files .net, .clu and .vec and tried following the pajek tutorial of analysing main path, but there is no result. Can you please share how can I make input files from Vosviewer for this? Also how can extract the cluster data of any analysis or cluster data for pajek? Also, if I want to use both databases WOS and Scopus and then analyse all this what would be the procedure?
Also, when I analysis all the data which are not refined yet, I am not getting a great result. But when I have used a dataset after manually excluding the irrelevant papers, I could see a better result. Shy is that? Which data would be better to use?
Sorry for this long questions, but I really want to understand this and apply this in my paper.
Thank you.
Regards,
Poulomi Chakraborty

I was trying to do a map with vosviewer, but I couldn´t because appear a message
Error while Reading file scopus.csv (line 252) incorrect numbre of columns
Can you help me?
Thanks

I cannot generate a thesaurus file. I do it according to the sample, but the system still writes an error.
What's wrong :
label replace by
human humans
humans humans
learning organizations learning organization
learning organization learning organization

Hello Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman,
I am trying to analyse the citation and cocitation analysis. The bullets for citation, bibliographic coupling and Co-citation are disabled. Please help me to address this problem.

Dear Ludo and colleagues, first of all congratulations for developing this very useful tool, which I used before. Could I please ask if I could upload 285k Excel records extracted from SciVal which I will, of course, transform in Scopus-like csv file and split in smaller files (please indicate what is the recommended upper limit of the number of rows / file). Many thanks for your support and I'm looking forward to the Bibliometrics and Scientometrics for Research Evaluation CWTS training, booked for mid November. Kind regards, Silvia D

Best regards,
I hope you are doing well with your loved ones.
I join the thanks given by several of the researchers for the development of this interesting and excellent tool.
On the other hand, I request your kind collaboration with regard to the following:
I have downloaded the data from the WoS and SCOPUS databases in the file extensions supported by the software; however, it generates an error that continues to persist that says: Error in line (xxx). The download of said data was successful.
What is the reason for this situation? Is it due to Java, or to the update of the databases? ¿Which will be the solution?
I will be attentive to your kind collaboration and attentive comments.

Scopus

I cannot get the .csv file to open on vosviewer ( Error while reading file..... IOException reading next record: java.io.IOexception: (line 182) invalid char between encapsulated token and delimiter" ). I have looked into the file at line 182 but can't see anything special about it. Any other options to solve this problem?

Dear Ludo, the export function of Web of Science (both in the new version and in the classic one) no longer contains the "full record and cited references" option. Do you or someone from the blog have any suggestions? Thanks for your attention.

If I have two CSV files downloaded from the Scopus database based on different timeframes. For the analysis, I want both in one CSV. How to combine it and use it?

First, thank you for providing such a powerful software! I have been using it for quite some time and would like to ask how the link and total link strength are calculated. I can't seem to find any detailed information on this, especially when conducting bibliographic coupling analysis. Could you please elaborate and/or direct me to publications with a detailed explanation?
Thank you!

Manual says on page 43 "For examples of thesaurus files, see the files thesaurus_authors.txt and thesaurus_terms.txt." But I cannot find these files as examples. Where are they?

Good way to extract data at a glance

well

well and good

Hi,
I started using VOSviewer a week ago now, and it's really great, but I saw the maps you're displaying on the Home page and I can't seem to figure out how to create such a country-based or university-based mapping.
I am using the following types of files : .enw , .csv , or a.txt with a list of DOI. But VOSviewer only offers me to create maps about authorships, keywords, citations, or bibliography, which was useful, but I'd like to go further.
Do you know what type of file I should provide to VOSviewer in order to be able to visualize links between countries or universities ? I have this information in my .csv file but it won't be displayed by VOSviewer.
Thank you very much

I am using the co-occurence analysis and got stucked in this particular situations. In my data have 1 document that consist of repeated references (1 document being references for many times). Should i manually delete the identical references?

i have downloaded the software but the co-occurence analysis is not active

Hi
How to merge several small clusters into one cluster?
I appreciate your consideration

Please, do I need permission before I can use Vosviewer visualizations and maps in my work/article?

Hi
I am importing the Dimension CSV files. I do not find the co-occurrence of keyword option in the menu. Is this not available for the Dimension database?
Thx

Hi. I am used to use VosViewer with Web of Science data. I just tried to use it with an export from Dimensions, but when I am in VosViewer, at the step to upload the .csv, I get the message "Error while reading Dimension file "Tite of my file" : Index 0, Size 0". I read your manual, and looked at an online tutorial, so I think I exported correctly from Dimension (choosing Export for bibliographic mapping). Are there some manipulations that needs to be done with that csv file before uploading it in VosViewer?
I also made sure I have the latest version of VosViewer (1.6.16)
Thank you very much.

Hello,
Thank you for developing this great tool! I am finding it super useful.
I am working with a bibliographic datafile of 2415 publications exported from Scopus. For the co-authorship, citation and bibliographic coupling networks the "authors" option is not available. Is that a general problem with Scopus data? Or is there something I can do for the authors to be recognised (by name or ID number)?

Hi there,
I have installed the latest version today but it is not activating following options while going for analysis:
1. Citation
2. Co-citation
3. Bibliographic coupling
I'm using scopus dataset with 890 data in CVS format..
Plz reply fast

Hi,
In the Co-occurrence map for keywords, it seems that the link strength between two keywords denotes the number of co-occurrence between these two words. In this case, what does the distance between these two words stands for? I have seen cases where two keywords have higher link strength are further away than those with lower link strength.
Thanks a lot!

Hi . Is it possible to make csv file manually for network visualization in VOSviewer. I don't have access Scopus, web of science . So I want to make csv file manually for network visualization in VOSviewer

Hi
I am making a graph on co authorship(authors), like docs of author is 5 or citation 5, the link strength of an author is the highest like 533, its citation is also 33, docs also 700, and it is also shown in the exported list, the problem is this that it's not visualizing in the map or not even in the items list or clusters. Any suggestion

Hi
I have creating the thesaurus while I entered the terms according to the PabMed MESH database and there is an error for the line that does not exist. The number of terms is 81, but the error is for the line 82. What does it mean?
(The primary output is from PabMad)
Thanks

Hi
Please send me a sample thesaurus to recall in Notepad or WordPad or Excel format. My files give an error. The error message is also about the header.
Thanks

My Citation analysis, bibliographic coupling and co-citation tabs are not working the other analysis tabs are working. What is the issue can someone help me in this regard.

I have used VOSviewer in around 50 different studies using Scopus data (exclusively).
Now, for the first time, I got an error message when trying to load the data file: "Error while reading Scopus file...(line 91): incorrect number of columns.
I have tried numerous solutions including changing the CSV export conditions (e.g., no funding options etc.), restarting VOSviewer, and downloading fresh data files from Scopus. I've looked into the file at line 91 but can't see anything special about it. Any other options to consider?

In co-occurrence analysis, what is the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword means? Is that means, I choose 10 means the keyword needs to appear at least on 10 documents? Thanks

Hello!
I am looking for some information on how the clusters are made/determined. I have looked through the manual and read through how the clusters are expressed, but how are submissions actually sorted?

The tool is very helpful, thanks! I have a problem with exporting the data that is visualised to a csv file for excel. Using a windows system, it can be retrieved before the visualization when the table pops up but using a Mac, I don't see this option. How can I export for e.g., the resulting cluster data using a Mac? Thank you.

Please I have downloaded VOSviewer, when I try to access it I get this feedback
Error while reading Web of Science file 'savedrecs (2).txt' (line 31): Incorrect number of columns
Please what do I do now?

Hi,
I would be appreciated if you explained how could I add year in last report.
Thanks,

Dear sir,
I have now installed the latest version today but it is not activating following options while going for analysis:
1. Citation
2. Co-citation
3. Bibliographic coupling
Waiting for your suggestions.

Hi,
I am a lecture at King’s College London and I am using Vosviwer for the first time. I am looking to map/ link who published with whom and how much- sort of network of authors, from where I coudl hopefully pull out he netwokrs of the most published authors.
I have a file in csv format with Title of paper, and columns with Author1, Author 2etc..
I tried uploading this file but get multiple errors the main ones:
1. When the title of paper remains in the file it just will not take it
Else one time it said number of columns should be greater than number of lines
My file has 1500 rows and 10 columns – does that mean I need to create 1500 columns ( the maximum authors we have on any one paper is 10)
2. Line 3 unique ID (line three has two authors who have collaborate don many papers)- this is the Most common error I have been getting.
I tried putting none31 in line 2 and none32 in row 3 so that the two rows would not be exactly alike but that did not work.
Is there a simple way to upload a such a csv and get a network of authors mapped out?
Would appreciate any help you can provide. Happy toc all and chat or do an MS teams call.
Thank you in advance fro your help.
Please a snapshot of the file below - sorry the formating is not okay but it is from a csv file.

Title Author-Name-1 Author-Name-2 Author-Name-3..
Measuring Consumer Interactivity in Response to Campaigns Coupling Mobile and Television Media ROBERTDAVIS LASZLOSAJTOS

Hi
I have created many thesaurus files but am encountering a strange problem with the most recent one. The file filters correctly for all analyses EXCEPT author citation analysis. For example, when I run author co-citation analysis the author names are correctly replaced with the alternate form. Keywords and countries are also replaced correctly.
Any idea why that would happen?
Philip

Hi,
thank you so much for offering free of charge VOS viewer, it is amazing progress compared to some other previous softwares. I kindly ask you for your help, with mapping collaborators on a geographic map (Case 21 in AIDA booklet).
Namely, I tried to understand how to add extra nodes that represent country boarders but have not been successful. Can you please explain me how to do that and where exactly to find instruction?
Thank you.

Hi, I want to use VOSviewer to make a term co-occurrence map, but I found that the Chinese abstracts in the RIS file I imported cannot be recognized, and only a few English words can be subsumed in it. I have not found any information about Chinese abstracts on the Internet. So I am sorry to bother you, is it because Chinese is not supported? Thank you.

We created a list in Scopus and downloaded as CSV. We did not open the csv file or change it in any way.
We opened VOSviewer and loaded the file. However, the only analysis options that appear are Co-author and Co-occurrence.
Why would that happen?

Hi,
I'm trying to create a map using a CSV file which I downloaded from Scopus. But an error message "Error while reading Scopus file 'scopus.csv';-1. I tried to download and make another new file in several times. What is the meaning of "-1" in the error message ? How can I resolve this ?
Thank you.

I'm having a problem and is that when I try to put a thesaurus to mi file, I follow all the steps that the manual said, but when I'll try to put it, VOSviewer says that the header of the first line is empty, and it is not

Hi!
I'm trying to create a map from PubMed. I've exported them like file with Medline format. Once I'm trying to open them in VOSviewer it says ¡ : "Error while reading PubMed file `pmc_results.txt` (line 2530): Multiple DP fields".
And I have no idea about what I should do. Please, could you help me?
I've used the software in the past and I have never had this problem.
Thanks in advance.

Hi, I am importing a pajek .net file into VOSviewer, but it says "error: all items have same coordinates." How should I fix this?

Hello there,
I have a meta data exported from Web of Science, I wanted to analyze author bibliographic coupling, but unfortunately, some of the authors' name have written differently and they are counted twice or more and they got different scores.
exp: Boje, d. or Boje d. m. or Boje, dm.
so, the result is not valid, is there any way to have more accurate result?
Many thanks.

Dear Ness and Ludo,
Thanks for the wonderful demonstration on the YouTube. I tried to install the VOSviewer in my mac catalina. But the VOCviewer file opens but very soon closes by itself without any warning or such thing. I downloaded the latest Java and tried to use the tutorial you have provided for MAC users. But I did not get the settings/ open any way option at all.. Please let me know how I can install the VOSviewer.
Thanks,
M

I am reviewing a ms for publication and the author has applied journal co-citation
network analysis, author co-citation network analysis, and bibliometric coupling to a database consisting of only 54 journal articles. It is my understanding from discussions on this Board that this is well below the necessary threshold for obtaining valid results through these bibliometric analyses.
Am I correct, and are there any conditions that would make the application of these analyses to such a small viable?
Thanks.

Hi,
I have built a reference list based on a search on ProQuest, scanned / culled using Research Scanner with the selected references saved into an EndNote X9 database. I would like to use the EndNote output to run through VOSviewer. The output formats available are .txt and .enl files which I have not been able to make work. Unfortunately VOSviewer seems to be looking for .enw formats or .txt files in different formats from EndNote. Can you confirm that this is the case or point out what I am not doing correctly?
Kind regards