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Zotero: Citation Manager

Using Citations

Return to the Record

  • You can return to the record of any item in your collection by right-clicking on the item and clicking View Online.

Attach file such as the Full-text PDF to the record

Zotero can store pdfs of items to allow you easy access.

  • To see if you have the pdf attached to your item, in the center column, click on the wedge .
  • This will show you a listing of all the attachments that the item has attached to it, including the PDF.
  • Sometimes pdfs come with generic or non-descriptive file names. To rename it, right click on the pdf and choose Rename File from Parent Metadata.

Attaching PDF to an Item

When you have a pdf (from a database, from interlibrary loan, from a colleague…), it can easily be added to your Zotero Library.

  1. Drag the pdf file into your Zotero Standalone client, into My Library or into a specific collection.
  2. Now right click on the pdf in the center pane and choose “Retrieve Metadata for PDF.” Or this may have happened automatically!

Formatting Citations

Create a Bibliography

  1. Right-click on an item, a collection, or a sub-collection and choose Create a bibliography.
  2. Select the format you would like to use.
  3. Use the pull-down menu next to Bibliographic style and choose your citation format style. Zotero defaults to the the citation format you set in preferences.
  4. Select the file format you prefer the bibliography to generate in.
    • RTF (rich text file): Will open the bibliography into a RTF word processing file (i.e. Microsoft Word)  ***recommended
    • HTML: Will open the bibliography into you default browser window.
    • Copy to Clipboard: Will copy a plain text format bibliography to your computer's clipboard.