Guide to Zotero Bibliography
About
Zotero is a free, literature review management tool, developed as Firefox plugin.
Setup
- Install plugin in Firefox (at least 2.0, install from website and not from the Firefox addons page!)
- Register with Zotero website to get user name and password to Zotero Sync server.
- Open Zotero from your Firefox statusbar (usually right-most entry reading "zotero")
- Go to settings (click the third icon from the left, the small cogwheel, and open "Preferences" or "Einstellungen", depends on your Firefox language)
- In Sync page, enter your Zotero Sync Server user name and password.
- For first sync: at the settings tab, click the "reset" tab next to it, choose the second (or whichever is "erase local data, restore from server") and click on "Reset".
- Click on "Sync" (the reset just restores the metadata from the Zotero server, but doesn't download the files from Oliver yet)
- On busy days (afternoon, especially after a Zotero update when everyone sync their DB) the sync process may be quite long (or even stuck). Try later or get the repository from someone else (you can just copy the Zotero profile folder, it's that easy). But it probably will never happen to you, as they are upgrading their servers at the moment.
- File sync settings: Click on the drop-down list and select "WebDAV" as attachment files sync storage
- URL : (https:/ /) oliver.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/zotero/your-desired-zotero-depository-name (/zotero). You have to created the subfolder manually. Make sure it doesn't exist yet or you will compromise someone else's DB!
- Username and password is your i10-wide user login. Click "Verify Server" to check if everything is set up ok (typos etc.), the WebDAV folder is accessible from external as well (thanks to Jonathan), no VPN stuff needed.
- HINT: If it doesn't work (the verify test seems to stuck), you have to tell Firefox you really really trust Olivers certificate (surf to https://oliver.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ and follow instructions)
- Customize settings: If your Zotero folder is located on Oliver, disable the "Automatically attach associated PDFs" in generel settings (reason see "Issues" below). It's probably also a good idea to disable "take snapshots" and "tag items with keywords"
Adding New Papers
Note: The following advices mention conventions we came up with to keep our DB clean. They are based on the assumption that a multiple number of researchers works on the same account and fit our personal preference.
Before Adding
- Check if the paper you want to add is already added, there is no duplicate detection yet.
There are many ways to add new papers:
- Import a bibtex file
- Drag the PDF into Zotero, rightclick => "Retrieve metadata for PDF"
- Go to ACM/IEEE/Amazon/whatever and click on the small icon to the right in the browser address bar
After Adding
- Check tags (e.g., IEEE always imports author's tags, it's a mess)
- Check capitalization (e.g., ACM imports are always lower-cased)
- Check category (drag this into suitable categories, it's just a link, multiple categories possible)
- Delete category "Imported on " (e.g., is always created when importing from bibtex)
- Check conference tag. It's usually "Proceedings of...", just add short conference name and year, e.g., "CHI '27: Proceedings of...", see similar entries in the DB
- PDF:
+* Add PDF if possible
+* Delete/do NOT add PDF if you are working on a Mac networked Firefox profile folder like the i10 machines, see issues below
+* Rename PDF (right-cick => Rename file from parent metadata)
- Snapshot:
+* Delete "snapshot" if you added PDF
+* Add snapshot if there is no PDF available (e.g., Amazon)
+* Add snapshot if the item is a website (so the website can be viewed later even if it's not online anymore)
- If you want to add notations, create a note (see "Notes"/"Notizen" on the right), titled with your name in square brackets, e.g., (Fritz)
Issues
- If your Firefox profile is on a Apple network server (like on Oliver in our case), you can't upload new files with sync (the .zip files will be corrupt). There is no workaround yet, I'm in contact with the Zotero developers to resolve this issue. You can set the storage of your Zotero files in the "Advanced" settings tab in the Zotero settings. A USB pen drive will do the job, but it's not recommended since it's removed after PC shutdown and will cause errors ;-) It seems as if this bug will not be fixed in the near future, since this is more a Firefox + Mac OS X bug than anything with Zotero itself.
Notes, Hints
- If you can't find a desired setting, be sure to check "about:config" as well (just type in Firefox address bar, without the quotes, and search for "zotero" with the filter), those "hidden preferences" offer a lot customizable stuff.
- The forum is incredible helpful. After posting your problem in the "2.0 beta" forum, it usually takes less a day until the developer (not some unfriendly geek who doesn't have clue, really the actual developer of Zotero!) will answer. If possible, be sure to include error report number/debug error report number, it may get solved even faster.
- Some nice hints and tips: http://ideophone.org/12-zotero-tips-and-techniques/
- Howto automatically generate a bibtex file (not tested): http://www.curiousjason.com/zoterotobibtex.html
- If you have a rating for your papers, this trick will do: Create sub-categories in your -Users- category with ratings or plain numbers and drag the papers there. This is the only way everyone can have their own rating.
Export Settings
Note: All these settings may be overwritten by updating Zotero, so perform a backup of your changes.
Cite Key
The BibTeX key has to be unique, therefore it is exported in the form: Author_Keyword_Year. To change this, go to your Zotero storage folder (Preferences > Advanced > Show Data Directory). In /zotero/translators/BibTeX.js, edit variable citeKeyFormat (line 59) to something you like (e.g., change it to "%a%y" for "AuthorYear").
If the key is not unique (i.e. an author has two publications or more in one year in the above example) a string -1, -2, and so on is added for the following keys. To edit this, you need to edit function buildCiteKey(item, citekeys). Near the end of the function, you will see the code similar to this:
var i = 0;
while(citekeyscitekey) {
i++;
citekey = basekey + "-" + i;
}
citekeyscitekey = true;
return citekey;
This is used to generate unique cite keys when there are many entries that have the same first author and year. If you want the key in the format like borchers2000, borchers2000a, borchers2000b etc. You need to change the code to the following:
var i = 96;
while(citekeyscitekey) {
i++;
citekey = basekey + String.fromCharCode(i);
}
citekeyscitekey = true;
return citekey;
The code change the counter to 96 which is the character code of 'a'. If the citekey is not unique, it attempt adding a unique character to basekey (which is author last name and year) until it get a unique key.
Customized BibTeX export file
Download a customized BibTeX export file that contains the following changes:
- Pages always separated by "--"
- "CHI '10: Proceedings of bla..." abbreviated to "In Proc. of CHI '10"
- Export only necessary fields (and not abstract, isbn, doi, notes, ...)
- Encapsulate single field author (e.g. "Apple Computer, Inc.") in braces for correct order
- Omit braces for hiphenated words in titles
TikiWiki Footnote item
If you use the TikiWiki footnote plugin, the following export style sheet creates footnote-like references:
TikiWiki footnote
Word Plugin
Zotero has some feature to connect your Zotero DB to a Word document. Jan-Peter used this for his CHI submission, he also changed the CSS style of the Zotero reference exports.
All the export settings can be found in your zotero folder, subfolder styles. The CSS sheets are simple XML documents, if you add a tag at the end, you can specify sort keys.