- Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.
- Zotero has a very nice built-in integration with Microsoft Word and Libre Office. A bit of magic is needed if one wants to use it with LaTeX or (like me) with rmarkdown. The magic part is the Better BibTeX plugin, which we’ve installed and set up earlier.
Using Zotero with LaTeX and BibTeX FAQ
- How can I correct warnings I encounter when running LaTeX on my document after compiling the bibliography file?
What is LaTeX?
Zotero is a bibliographic management tool that can help you keep track of your sources and so much more. The OU Libraries periodically offers Zotero workshops,but you may not be able to get to one. Zotero is a free, easy-to-use, open-source tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research. The Zotero Connector automatically senses content as you browse the web and allows you to save items to Zotero with a single click.
LaTeX is a typesetting program that takes a plain text file with various commands in it and converts it to a formatted document based on the commands that it has been given. The source file for the document has a file extension of .tex.
What is BibTeX?
BibTex is a bibliographic tool that is used with LaTeX to help organize the user's references and create a bibliography. A BibTex user creates a bibliography file that is separate from the LaTeX source file, wth a file extension of .bib. Each reference in the bibliography file is formatted with a certain structure and is given a 'key' by which the author can refer to it in the source file.
How do I export from Zotero to BibTeX?
Open Zotero in your Firefox browser.
If you'd like to export all of the references in a certain library to BibTeX, click on the Actions drop-down menu and select 'Export Library...' If you'd like to export only certain references, select those references using control-clicks and shift-clicks, then right click one of them and select 'Export Selected Items...'
From the dialog box that pops up, select the BibTeX format, and click OK. Navigate to the directory where you are storing your manuscript, and save the file. This will generate a file in the appropriate format for BibTeX to read and create a bibliography from.
To link the bibliography file that you just downloaded to your document, you need to enter two commands:
bibliographystyle{style} should go just inside your begin{document} command. style.bst is the name of the style file dictating the format of your bibliography (see How do I change the format of the bibliography? below).
bibliography{filename} should go wherever you want LaTeX to generate the bibliography. filename.bib is the name of the file that you just downloaded from RefWorks containing your exported references.
How do I cite references in my document?
Insert the command cite{firstauthor_firstwordoftitle_yyyy} where 'yyyy' is the four-digit year. To check that you have the correct citation key for a certain reference, you can look at the .bib file using a text editor.
How can I correct warnings I encounter when running LaTeX on my document after compiling the bibliography file?
If you receive a warning from LaTeX that references may have changed, simply run LaTeX again. In fact, the correct order for running LaTeX and BibTeX, where document is your document name, is:
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latex document
bibtex document
latex document
latex document
This process should correctly create your bibliography and in-text citations for your document.
How can I fix references that had problems formatting special characters?
If the references in your bibliography file contain certain special characters which are used as part of the syntax of LaTeX, you could see some strange behavior as LaTeX tries to correctly format the citation. The following characters are part of the LaTeX syntax and as such will need to be replaced with a LaTeX command if they are used in a citation:
| Character | LaTeX Command |
| # | # |
| $ | $ |
| % | % |
| & | & |
| _ | _ |
| { | { |
| } | } |
| ~ | ~{ } |
| ^ | ^{ } |
| $backslash$ |
When Zotero outputs one of these characters (except for brackets) it appends a backslash to the character. This solves the problem in many cases but not in all; tildes (~), carats (^), and backslashes() will still not behave correctly and will need more attention. Brackets within the citation will not appear at all unless you manually append the backslash as in the table above.
How can I make an organization name display correctly?
BibTeX reads text in the author field as an author's name or names unless told otherwise. For example, say a reference exported from RefWorks contains the line:
author={Institute of Electrical Engineers},
BibTeX will read this field as a person's name, where the first name is 'Institute' and the last name is 'of Electrical Engineers,' and would format accordingly. Use a text editor and to add quotes around the field so that the line reads:
author='{Institute of Electrical Engineers}',
Now BibTeX will read this all as one piece rather than as a person's name, and will format correctly.
How can I override BibTeX capitalization conventions?
BibTeX attempts to correct the capitalization in the title field such that only the first letter of the first word is capitalized. While this is generally gramatically correct, it can cause problems if the title contains a proper name or an acronym, so that a line in the bibliography file that looks like this:
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title={IEE Proceedings},
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will appear in the bibliography as 'Iee proceedings.' Use a text editor and to add quotes around the field so that the line reads:
title='{IEE Proceedings}',
The quotes will prevent BibTeX from applying its capitalization rules to the title of the document and thus will preserve the capitalization for proper nouns.
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How do I change the format of the bibliography?
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The bibliography format is determined by the style file that you have entered in the bibliographystyle{} command. S Style files may also be edited to produce a required bibliography style.
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