Zotero: Tips & Tricks

If you're using Internet Explorer or a mobile browser, you can still save items to your Zotero library. A free Zotero Account is required.

The Zotero Bookmarklet works with all desktop browsers and most mobile browsers (including Safari for iPad and the Android browser).

Visit the Zotero Bookmarklet page for installation instructions for your particular browser or device.

Have PDFs saved to your computer?  It's easy to add PDFs to your Zotero library and then import their citation info.

1. Enable PDF indexing on the Search tab of Zotero's preferences.  Zotero will download and install a small plugin.
2. Drag your PDF files into the Zotero pane.
3. Right-click the PDFs and choose "Retrieve Metadata for PDFs."  Zotero will retrieve their citation data from Google Scholar and turn them into citeable items with PDF attachments.
4. If Zotero can't find a match on Google Scholar, locate the article in a library database and save the citation.  Then click and drag your PDF onto the saved citation to attach it.

If you have a book's ISBN, an online article's DOI or PMID number, just click the magic wand button, "Add item by identifier." Type in the book or article's number, and hit Enter.  Zotero will automatically import the item's information to your library.