Boyang Yan

Zotero

4 min read

Introduction

Why Use Zotero?

  • Be Organized: Keep all of your research and citations in one place
  • Save time: Format fewer citations by hand
  • Collaborate: Work with anyone in the world, anytime
  • It’s Free: No cost even after you

Zotero Installation

paru -S zotero-beta-bin

Launch Zotero

Create a Zotero Account

If you haven’t already created a Zotero account, please take a few moments to register now Here. It’s a free way to sync and access your library from anywhere, and it lets you join groups and back up all your attached files.

Set up Zotero syncing

You can now set up Zotero syncing to sync your data across multiple computers, access your library online, or collaborate in group libraries. Follow these steps to get started.

  1. Open the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences

Goto “Edit” and click “Preferences”

  1. Enter your username and password

Enter your username and password into the Sync preferences and click “Set Up Syncing”. Zotero will now automatically sync your data as you make changes.

Zotero Connector

Go to this link.

Better Bibtex

Instaliion

Install by downloading the latest release and save the XPI file, just clicking it and then in Zotero:

  1. In the main menu go to Tools > Add-ons
  2. Select ‘Extensions’
  3. Click on the gear in the top-right corner and choose ‘Install Add-on From File…’
  4. Choose .xpi that you’ve just downloaded, click ‘Install’
  5. Restart Zotero

Settings

  1. Go to Edit → Preferences → Better BibTex

  • citation key format

    You can set key format gengeration the same format key with Google scholar

    [auth:lower][year][veryshorttitle:lower]

    Now,

    auth.lower + year + veryshorttitle.lower

    Zotero:

    Google Scholar:

    @article{jordan2015machine,
  title={Machine learning: Trends, perspectives, and prospects},
  author={Jordan, Michael I and Mitchell, Tom M},
  journal={Science},
  volume={349},
  number={6245},
  pages={255--260},
  year={2015},
  publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science}
}

  • Export

    1. In the main menu go to File > Export Library
    2. Format you can choose Better BibTex.

    Inportance Note: Don’t forget choose keep updated !

    1. Choose folder

    < figure src="" >

    1. There is a example:

      ```console [yanboyang713@Boyang-PC ~]$ head reference.bib

      @misc{ActionCommandsBasler, title = {Action Commands}} | {{Basler}, howpublished = {https://docs.baslerweb.com/action-commands%5C#action-group-mask}, file = {/home/yanboyang713/Zotero/storage/NKXFFZRJ/action-commands.html} }

      @misc{ActionCommandsBaslera, title = {Action Commands}} | {{Basler}, howpublished = {https://docs.baslerweb.com/action-commands}, ```

Zotfile

Install by downloading the latest release and save the XPI file, just clicking it – and then in Zotero:

  1. In the main menu go to Tools > Add-ons
  2. Select ‘Extensions’
  3. Click on the gear in the top-right corner and choose ‘Install Add-on From File…’
  4. Choose .xpi that you’ve just downloaded, click ‘Install’
  5. Restart Zotero

Settings

  1. In the main menu go to Tools → ZotFile Preferences

Location of Files

  1. Set Custom Location. For example: /home/yanboyang713/papers
  2. Use subfolder defined by /%a, mean author name.

Renaming Rules

  1. Set Format for all Item Types except Patents: {%b}

This will rename file same with your Citation Key.

  1. Set Maximum number of authors choose 1
  2. Uncheck Add suffix when authors are omitted

Scite

Install by downloading the latest release and save the XPI file, just clicking it – and then in Zotero:

  1. In the main menu go to Tools > Add-ons
  2. Select ‘Extensions’
  3. Click on the gear in the top-right corner and choose ‘Install Add-on From File…’
  4. Choose .xpi that you’ve just downloaded, click ‘Install’
  5. Restart Zotero

Reference List

  1. http://zotfile.com/
  2. https://github.com/scitedotai/scite-zotero-plugin
  3. https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/

Literature notes and citations

I (try to) take literature notes whenever I consume content that may contain helpful knowledge, be it papers, books, or videos.

The first step is to import the content into my reference management software of choice, Zotero. This guarantees that I have a record of all important metadata, a copy of the PDF/website/video, and a unique ID (the citation key) to refer to it.

Install

paru -S zotero-beta-bin

In most cases, I use Zotero’s browser plugin, which automates most parts of the import, although some cleanups are often required, such as:

  • Switching from title case to sentence case. Using sentence case is required to produce correct titles in all citation styles. The Better BibTeX plugin does this mostly automatically, though proper nouns need to be fixed manually afterward.

Spliting author names into pairs of last name, first name – this can usually be done automatically, but that can get confused by prefixes like “von.” Changing the item type. Journal papers, conference papers, preprints, and theses aren’t always properly distinguished by the sites one imports the data from. For YouTube videos, I usually need to change the item type to Presentation, fix up titles, add presenters, etc.

Citation

Graph View

Backlinks