Citation Managers for Research Organization

Creating a quick bibliography of your items is very easy. 

1.) Select items you would like to place in your quick bibliography. You can also make a selection of a folder to include all the items within.

2.) Right-click on the items and select "Create Bibliography from Items" from the drop-down menu. 

3.) A document preferences dialog box will appear allowing you to select your citation style preference, language, whether you would like the output mode to be citations or a bibliography, and the output method. The easiest method I've found is to select "Copy to Clipboard" as the option for the output method. 

4.) Once you've copied it to the clipboard, just open up a word editor and paste it from your clipboard.

Word processor integration is available for Microsoft Word and LibreOffice, and a version is in beta for integration with Google Documents These instructions and example images were created using Word for Mac. Please note that for the integration to function your Zotero desktop application must be open.

Verifying Installation in Word:

1.) Navigate to your preferences via Zotero >> Preferences and go to the Cite tab in your preferences window.

2.) Under the "Word Processors" toggle, install your Add-In if it's not already installed.

Adding In-Text Citations:

1.) To add in-text citations to a document, underneath the Zotero tab in Microsoft Word select the "Add/Edit Citation" button. 

2.) If this is the first time you are adding citations to this document in this session, you will be prompted to select document preferences prior to inserting the citation. The document preferences page controls the citation style, language, options to store citations as fields or bookmarks, and a check box to indicate whether or not you want your citations updated automatically. 

3.) After you've selected and confirmed your document preferences, a box will pop-up that will search your citations. Type in information referencing your desired article, select and hit the enter key. 

4.) Once you hit the enter key, the Zotero library will work to format the citation to the set specifications and draw the information from your Zotero desktop application.

You can enter multiple citations using this bar for information referenced from more than one source. 

Adding a Bibliography to a Document:

1.) At. the end of your document with in-text citations inserted using Zotero, click the button "Add/Edit Bibliography."

2.) A bibliography will be generated based on the citations inserted. The bibliography will be in whatever citation style you have selected. If you are missing fields or information that should be included, go back to the source in your Zotero desktop application and edit the fields to correct/add information. If you make these changes at the source, you can come back to your document and hit refresh to update the citations to match your library. 

Using the Classic Add Citation Selector:

Some folks would like to be able to visualize their library format and structure when selecting items to add to their library in Word. This is possible by opting to use the classic selector. The classic Add Citation dialog will allow you to view your library structure as you select items and have more detailed options available like adding a prefix or suffix, inserting a page number and viewing a visual editor of the citation insertion. 

1.) To set up automatic use of the classic selector, navigate to Zotero >> Preferences, in your Zotero Library. 

2.) Once the Preferences dialog opens, Select the "Cite" tab and toggle to the Word Processor section. At the bottom of the page, check the "Use classic Add Citation dialog" checkbox. 

To trial this option and see if you prefer it by selecting the dropdown arrow to switch to the classic Add Citation dialog. You can also always click on this option to use the classic Citation Add Dialog on an as needed basis.