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Zotero: Citation Manager

Using Zotero

There are lots of other great things that Zotero can do to make collecting, organizing, citing and sharing citations easy. Take a look at a few of our favorites on this page.

Edit an Item in Your Library

Zotero is great, but no tool is perfect. Sometimes you'll notice an error or gap in an item's information, which creates an error in your citation. To make changes:

  1. Find and highlight the item in your library.
  2. You should be able see item info in the right pane.
  3. Click on the field you want to edit (e.g. Title).
  4. Type to update the information and then hit enter.
  5. That's it!

Note: if you're using the MS Word Add-In, you'll want to hit Refresh to see the edits reflected in your Bibliography.

Zotero is great, but no tool is perfect. Sometimes you'll notice an error or gap in an item's information, which creates an error in your citation. To make changes:

  1. Find and highlight the item in your library.
  2. You should be able see item info in the right pane.
  3. Click on the field you want to edit (e.g. Title).Zotero library, with the title field of an item highlighted for editing. 
  4. Type to update the information and then hit enter.
  5. That's it!

Note: if you're using the MS Word Add-In, you'll want to hit Refresh to see the edits reflected in your Bibliography.

Video: Editing an Item

Organize with Collections

You can organize the stuff in your library into Collections  (s) , and here's how:

  1. In the top left corner of your library click on the with the green . 
  2. Give your new collection a name.
  3. You can now drag citations from your library into a collection folder. (Everything will always also stay in your library, so each citation can be added to multiple collections.) 

You can organize the stuff in your library into Collections  (s) , and here's how:

  1. In the top left corner of your library click on the with the green . 
  2. Give your new collection a name.Zotero library, creating new Collection named "_example" 
  3. You can now drag citations from your library into a collection folder. (Everything will always also stay in your library, so each citation can be added to multiple collections.) 

Video: Creating and Using Collections

Sharing with a Group

Groups Libraries are an easy way to share citations - they're a wonderful tool for group projects, journal clubs and more:

  1. Click on the new group icon, at the top left of your library (it will open your Zotero online).
  2. When prompted, log into your Zotero account in the page that opens.
  3. Name your group, choose a membership level and click Create Group.
  4. Pick access setting for group members and click Save Settings.
  5. Now that the group exists, you can go to Member Settings to add people.
  6. That's it, now you can add/copy/share references with your Group Library.

Groups Libraries are an easy way to share citations - they're a wonderful tool for group projects, journal clubs and more:

  1. Click on the new group icon, at the top left of your library (it will open your Zotero online).Zotero library, click on new group button in the top left - above the list of collections. 
  2. When prompted, log into your Zotero account in the page that opens.
  3. Name your group, choose a membership level and click Create Group.
    Create a new group process in online Zotero. Name your group and click Create Group. 
  4. Pick access setting for group members and click Save Settings.Choose the group settings. The default are public, you can set them partially and completely private. 
  5. Now that the group exists, you can go to Member Settings to add people.
    In your new group on the member settings page click on send more invitations to add people.
    After you've added emails, click invite members. 
  6. That's it, now you can add/copy/share references with your Group Library.
    Shared group library is visible in desktop Zotero, in left column underneath My Library.

Video: Group Libraries

Extract References from a Bibliography

When you have a regular document with a list of references, here's a way to quickly add those references to your Zotero library.

  1. Copy and paste the references into the CrossRef Simple Text Query box.
  2. Click Submit.
  3. On the results page, use the Zotero Connector to add items to your library.

Note: CrossRef may not be able to generate a "findable" citation for every item, so double-check the list.

When you have a regular document with a list of references, here's a way to quickly add those references to your Zotero library.

  1. Copy and paste the references into the CrossRef Simple Text Query box.
  2. Click Submit.
    Paste your reference list into Crossref and then click submit. 
  3. On the results page, use the Zotero Connector to add items to your library.Use the Zotero Connector to select items to add to your library.  

Note: CrossRef may not be able to generate a "findable" citation for every item, so double-check the list.

Zotero for Tablets

There are a couple options for using Zotero on a tablet:

First, you can set up a "bookmarklet," a bookmarking tool that you add to your browser so you can save articles to your library:

  1. On your iPad go to Settings > Safari. Set Show Favorites Bar to ON, Block Cookies to Always Allow.
  2. Still in Settings > Safari, go to Advanced and set JavaScript to ON.
  3. Open https://www.zotero.org/downloadbookmarklet in a browser on your tablet and bookmark it.
  4. Choose your device and copy the code from the text box on the page.
  5. Change the bookmark's name to Save to Zotero.
  6. Paste the code from the text box as the URL for the bookmark.
  7. You should now be able to add citations to your Zotero library.

The other option is to set up an app like PaperShip or ZotPad (available through iTunes).

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