EPUB and webpage snapshot annotation

Zotero 7 added the ability to view and annotate EPUBs and webpage snapshots, and it’s now possible in Zotero for iOS as well. You can add highlights, underlines, and sticky notes to EPUBs and snapshots and seamlessly sync those annotations with Zotero on your computer.

EPUBs and webpage snapshots are particularly well suited to mobile devices because of their ability to reflow text based on screen size and orientation, and some publishers now offer EPUBs as alternatives to PDFs. Zotero will still automatically download PDFs rather than EPUBs from most sites, but we’ll be providing a way to choose a preferred attachment format in a future version.

PDF metadata retrieval

Zotero for iOS can also now automatically retrieve bibliographic details for standalone PDFs shared with the app from your browser or other apps or added directly from within the app. We still recommend sharing an article page from the browser when possible and allowing the app to automatically download the available PDF, but when that’s not an option, you can save a PDF directly and let the app attempt to create a parent item without needing to run Retrieve Metadata back on the desktop.

Zotero for Android lets you work with your Zotero data no matter where you are:

• Sync your personal and group libraries
• View and edit item details
• Organize items into collections
• Take notes on your research
• Read PDFs and add highlight, note, image, and ink annotations (EPUB/snapshot support coming soon)
• Save journal articles, newspaper articles, books, webpages, and more by sharing a URL from your browser or other apps
• Automatically download article PDFs to read (currently limited to PDFs accessible without a login due to Android limitations)
• Add items by DOI, ISBN, PMID, or other identifiers
• Automatically retrieve bibliographic details for PDFs saved directly to the app
• Quickly add physical books to your Zotero library by scanning book barcodes with your device camera

Back on your computer, you can add the PDF annotations you’ve made on your Android device to Zotero notes and insert those notes into your word processor document with active Zotero citations or export them to Markdown.

Please post to the Zotero Forums with any bug reports or feature requests. Be sure to mention “Android” in your thread title.

Get Zotero for Android on the Google Play Store

A Major Redesign

Zotero 7 introduces a beautiful, modern design that will still feel familiar to long-time Zotero users.

New Item Pane

As part of the redesign, we’ve taken the opportunity to rethink some core elements of Zotero. One of the most important changes is in the item pane, where we’ve replaced the horizontal tabs (Info, Tags, Notes, etc.) with collapsible vertical sections and a side navigation bar for quick access to specific sections. This approach allows us to show additional information right in the item pane without compromising usability. Plugins are also able to easily create dedicated sections with custom information or actions.

At the top of the item pane, a new customizable header lets you choose what info to show: title, title/author/date, or even a bibliography entry in your chosen citation style. The header remains visible when the Info section is collapsed, so you can choose to keep the Info section closed when you’re not editing metadata and still see the title and other important info.

Dark Mode

We heard the calls: Zotero 7’s new design includes a gorgeous dark mode. We know dark mode is important to many people, so we wanted to do it right: every part of the new design was created with dark mode in mind.

We’ve also implemented basic dark-mode support for PDF and EPUB content, with more advanced rendering options coming soon. If you need to view a document in its original state, you can disable dark mode for content from the reader’s View menu.

Compact vs. Comfortable

We now offer two density options for Zotero’s user interface, Compact and Comfortable. Compact resembles the previous density, while Comfortable, the new default, provides a more approachable experience for new users with smaller libraries or people who just prefer a bit more breathing room.

New App Icon

Finally, to complete the look, we’ve created a delightful new app icon.

Improved Performance

Zotero 7 is dramatically faster across the board, and it brings native support for Apple Silicon Macs, 64-bit Windows, and Windows on ARM, ensuring smooth operation on the latest hardware.

Improved Reader with EPUB and Snapshot Support

Zotero 7 includes the next major version of the built-in PDF reader — which, in fact, is no longer just a PDF reader!

EPUB

EPUB is the most popular ebook file format, and many people prefer EPUBs to PDFs for the improved reading experience they provide. Unlike PDFs, which have fixed layouts, most EPUBs allow text to reflow to the size of your window or device, and you can adjust the font and text size to your liking.

EPUBs now open in Zotero’s built-in reader in the same way as PDFs, and you can annotate them and add those annotations to notes just as you’ve been able to for PDFs.

Zotero can also automatically retrieve metadata for most EPUBs and create a parent item.

While Zotero won’t yet download EPUBs automatically from websites, we’ll soon make it possible to specify whether to save PDFs or EPUBs when both are available, and then we’ll begin the process of updating site translators to support EPUBs. If there’s a site that provides EPUBs that you’d like us to support, please let us know in the Zotero Forums.

Webpage Snapshots

Zotero already saves webpage snapshots on news articles and other pages, and those now open automatically in the new reader as well, enabling you to annotate webpages as easily as PDFs.

New Annotation Types

We’ve also added support for creating ink, underline, and text annotations. Ink annotations were already supported on iOS, and it’s now possible to create them in the desktop app as well. (This works best if you have a touchscreen PC or stylus.)

Underline annotations work just like highlights, while text annotations allow you to add text directly to the page.

Underline annotations are available for PDFs, EPUBs, and snapshots, while ink and text annotations are available for PDFs only.

Smart Reference Popup

Hovering over a citation or internal link now opens a popup showing the associated reference or figure. No need to jump back and forth just to check a reference.

Smarter Citing

Citing your sources is now faster and more intuitive. The citation dialog automatically suggests items you have selected in the items list or have open in the reader. Citing something you’re viewing is now as simple as clicking Add/Edit Citation and pressing Enter/Return.

Collection Search

Quickly find the collection you’re looking for in any of your libraries and jump to it without your fingers leaving the keyboard.

Press Enter/Return after typing to move to the collections list, up/down-arrow to move between results, and Esc to clear the search.

Tabs Menu

See a vertical list of all your tabs, type to filter the list, and quickly jump to a given tab. You can also quickly close or reorder tabs right from the menu.

Attachment Previews

See a preview of PDFs, EPUBs, snapshots, and images right in the item pane without opening the reader.

Collections and Searches in the Trash

Deleted collections and searches are now moved to the trash, just like items. If you delete a collection by accident, you can easily restore it from the trash with all the same items and subcollections.

“Libraries and Collections” List

A new section in the item pane shows all the collections and libraries the current item is in. (You can still hold down a modifier key to highlight the collections an item is in.)

Customizable File Renaming

Zotero has always automatically renamed files, but you can now rename files according to a much wider array of options. Write complex rules to make sure filenames always contain all the information you need.

Improved Accessibility

We’ve put in a huge amount of work to make Zotero more accessible to users of screen readers, and we’ve improved keyboard navigation throughout the app. We’re still working to make additional accessibility improvements and will be rolling out more changes in upcoming updates.

Improved Plugin Architecture

Zotero’s own functionality is supplemented by a vast ecosystem of plugins that can transform the Zotero experience: advanced BibTeX support, knowledge management, language translation, custom scripts, AI integration, and much more.

Zotero 7 introduces a new plugin architecture with restartless loading/unloading and built-in support for common integration points (items-list columns, item-pane sections, settings panes, etc.), which helps make plugins easier to write and more stable across Zotero updates. We’re working with plugin developers to add additional integration points.

All plugins need to be updated for Zotero 7. If there’s a plugin you depend on, check with the plugin developer to see if a version is available for Zotero 7.

And Much More

The Zotero 7 update includes much more than we can list here. See the changelog for additional details.

Get Zotero 7

If you’re already running Zotero, you can upgrade from within Zotero by going to Help → “Check for Updates…”.

Existing Windows users should install 64-bit Zotero for the best performance. You can reinstall over your existing version without affecting your data.

If you’re using an Apple Silicon Mac and do an in-app upgrade from Zotero 6, Zotero 7 will continue to run under Rosetta immediately after updating, so restart it for native performance.

Don’t yet have Zotero? Download Zotero 7 now.

PDF Reader and New Note Editor

With Zotero 6, you can now:

• Open PDFs in a new built-in reader within the main Zotero window, in a new tabbed interface
• Clean up metadata for items while viewing your PDFs
• Mark up PDFs with highlights, notes, and image annotations
• Add annotations to Zotero notes with automatic citations, in a powerful new note editor
• Cite other items directly in notes using Zotero’s familiar citation dialog
• Insert notes into your Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs documents with active Zotero citations for automatically generating bibliographies
• Export notes to external Markdown editors with links back to Zotero items and PDFs

Together with Zotero’s powerful saving abilities and word processor plugins, Zotero can now help you with the entire path from an interesting item online to a cited quote in your final document.

Seamless Annotation Syncing

Like all Zotero library data, the annotations you create will automatically sync across all your Zotero devices. There’s no need to close a PDF on one computer or worry about losing annotations due to sync conflicts.

In addition to annotating your own files, you can also create PDF annotations in group libraries, allowing you to collaboratively mark up PDFs with other group members and immediately see each other’s changes.

Zotero’s PDF reader syncs with our new Zotero iOS app, allowing you to highlight and take notes on your iPad or iPhone and then quickly pull those annotations into a note or word processor document when you’re back at your computer. You can even view ink annotations made with an Apple Pencil.

PDFs will open automatically to your current page, no matter what device you last used.

Annotations in Notes

After you’ve marked up a PDF, you can quickly add some or all annotations to a Zotero note.

Annotations added to notes aren’t just plain text: they include information about the source PDF that lets you quickly jump back to the original page to see context, generate bibliography entries using Zotero’s word processor plugins, toggle annotation colors on and off, include links back to Zotero when exporting to Markdown, and even restore accidentally deleted citations to make sure you’ve properly attributed a quote.

With note templates, you can customize the format of the annotations you add.

If you previously used the ZotFile extension to extract PDF annotations to Zotero notes, you can now use Zotero directly and benefit from these new features.

Adding Notes to Word Processors

When using one of the Zotero word processor plugins, a new “Add Note” button lets you insert any Zotero note directly into the document. Citations in the note, including those generated from PDF annotations, will remain active, so they’ll automatically be added to your bibliography.

Markdown Export

Notes now have their own Quick Copy setting, with a choice between Markdown + Rich Text or raw HTML. You can copy or drag notes from the items list, or even individual annotations from the PDF reader, directly to an external editor, with Markdown links back to the item and PDF page associated with annotations.

Embedded Images in Notes

Zotero notes now support embedded images. You can drag in images from your computer or the web, and they’ll sync to your other devices. You can even create an image annotation in the PDF reader and drag it straight into a note to create a cited image in your document.

Additional Zotero 6 Features

Zotero 6 also continues to refine Zotero’s existing functionality and addresses some popular feature requests.

Non-English Spellchecking

If you write in a language other than English, you can now add over 40 dictionaries for spellchecking in Zotero notes. No more red squiggly lines!

Improved Mendeley and Citavi Import

If you’re currently a Mendeley user (or know one), Zotero’s built-in Mendeley importer will now import Mendeley annotations for use in the new PDF reader. And a new import process allows you to import your Mendeley data directly from the online library (despite the database encryption added by Elsevier that made it impossible to import from a local copy of your own Mendeley library).

Importing from Citavi will now bring in Citavi PDF annotations.

Bundled Safari Extension

For Mac users running Big Sur or later, the Zotero Connector for Safari is now bundled with Zotero and can be enabled from the Extensions pane of the Safari preferences.

Other Changes

For the full list of changes in Zotero 6, see the changelog.

Get Zotero 6

If you’re already running Zotero, you can upgrade from within Zotero by going to Help → “Check for Updates…”.

Don’t yet have Zotero? Get it now from the download page.

Today we’re adding a feature that lets you move documents between Google Docs and Word or LibreOffice while preserving active Zotero citations. You can now begin writing a document collaboratively in Google Docs and move it to Word or LibreOffice for final editing, or vice versa.

When you use this feature, Zotero will convert the citations and bibliography to a temporary format that can be transferred safely between word processors.

We’ve added instructions for specific word processors, but the basic process is the same:

1. Choose “Switch to a Different Word Processor…” from the plugin’s Document Preferences window.
2. Save the converted file.
3. Open the file in the other word processor.
4. Click Refresh to continue using it.

In Google Docs, you can also choose “Switch Word Processors…” from the Zotero menu.

While the process should be entirely reversible, we recommend performing the conversion in a copy of the file.

While this conversion process is required to move active citations in and out of Google Docs, you can also use it to move documents between Word and LibreOffice without some of the problems inherent in Bookmarks mode.

You can start using this feature today in Zotero 5.0.72 and Zotero Connector 5.0.57.

How It Works

Retracted publications are flagged in the items list, and if you click on one you’ll see a warning at the top of the item pane with details on the retraction and links to additional information.

If you try to cite a retracted item using the word processor plugin, Zotero will warn you and confirm that you still want to cite it. If you’ve already added a citation to a document and it later is retracted, Zotero will warn you the next time you update the document’s citations, even if the item no longer exists in your Zotero library or was added by a co-author.

Currently, this feature is limited to items with a DOI or PMID (entered in the DOI field or in Extra as “DOI:”, “PMID:”, or “PubMed ID:”), which covers about 3/4 of Retraction Watch data, but we’re hoping to support items without identifiers as best as possible in a future update.

Designed for Privacy

The full retraction data is stored on Zotero servers, but we’ve designed this feature in a way that allows the Zotero client to check for retracted items without sharing the contents of your library. You don’t need to use Zotero syncing or upload a list of items to benefit from this feature.

For each item in your library, Zotero calculates a non-unique identifier that could map to hundreds or thousands of publications, and then compares those to a list of similar partial identifiers of retracted publications that it retrieves from Zotero servers. For each potential match, it requests the full details of all possible retractions, and then checks for local items matching any of those full identifiers and flags any that it finds. The Zotero servers have no way of knowing whether you have the retracted work in your library or one of hundreds or thousands of others. (A similar approach is used by some tools to check for compromised passwords without sharing the passwords they’re checking with the server.) And, as with our other services, we’re not logging the contents of even these anonymized lookups.

This feature is available today in Zotero 5.0.67.

Zotero makes it easy to collect research materials with a single click as you browse the web, but what do you do when you want to add a real, physical book to your Zotero library?

If you have an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12, you can now save a book to Zotero just by scanning its barcode:

This feature takes advantage of the new Shortcuts functionality in iOS 12, which can chain together series of actions to perform tasks.

To get started, you’ll first need to install Apple’s Shortcuts app, if you don’t yet have it on your iPhone or iPad.

Next, install the Scan Book to Zotero shortcut by tapping on the link below from your iPhone or iPad and selecting Open in “Shortcuts”:

Download Shortcut

Update, October 2019: In iOS 13, you need to enable “Allow Untrusted Shortcuts” in Settings to install shortcuts from outside the Shortcuts app Gallery. As of iOS 13.1.2, it may be necessary to first download another shortcut from the Gallery before the option appears in Settings.

After the shortcut opens, tap Done to close it, and then tap on the “Scan Book to Zotero” rectangle. The first time you run it, you’ll need to select “Run Shortcut” and grant the shortcut access to the camera, and you’ll need to log into the Zotero website before you can save. (If you haven’t yet set up syncing with Zotero on your computer, you’ll want to do that as well so that items you save will sync to Zotero on your computer.)

Whenever you want to scan a book into Zotero, you can trigger the shortcut in a number of different ways:

• You can open the Shortcuts app and select Scan Book to Zotero.
• You can swipe right from the lock screen or home screen to open the Today View and select Scan Book to Zotero in the Shortcuts widget. If the Shortcuts widget doesn’t appear or doesn’t appear where you want it, you can add or move it via the Edit button at the bottom.
• If you have an iPhone that supports 3D Touch, you can hard-press on the Shortcuts app icon and select Scan Book to Zotero from the widget popup.
• You can say something like “Hey Siri, add this book to Zotero”. (Maybe don’t use this one in the library.) To set a phrase for Siri, open the Shortcuts app, tap the three dots in the Scan Book to Zotero rectangle, tap the settings icon in the top right, and then tap Add to Siri and assign a phrase. In our testing, we found Siri support to still be a bit buggy in the current version of Shortcuts, so if Siri doesn’t recognize your phrase, try editing the shortcut and re-recording the phrase or wait for an update from Apple.

Happy scanning!

P.S. If you don’t use an iPhone or iPad, or you can’t upgrade to iOS 12, you can still save a book from your phone when you’re away from your computer by entering the ISBN manually. Simply bookmark this page and load it whenever you need to add a physical book.

The same powerful functionality that Zotero has long offered for traditional word processors is now available for Google Docs. You can quickly search for items in your Zotero library, add page numbers and other details, and insert citations. When you’re done, a single click inserts a formatted bibliography based on the citations in your document. Zotero supports complex style requirements such as Ibid. and name disambiguation, and it keeps your citations and bibliography updated as you make changes to items in your library. If you need to switch citation styles, you can easily reformat your entire document in any of the over 9,000 citation styles that Zotero supports.

Google Docs support is part of the Zotero Connector for Chrome and Firefox, which adds a new Zotero menu to the Google Docs interface:

It also adds a toolbar button for one-click citing:

When you start using Zotero in a document, you’ll first need to authenticate it with your Google account. You can then begin inserting citations from the Zotero libraries on your computer, just as you can with Word and LibreOffice.

Once you’ve finished your document and are ready to submit it, use File → “Make a copy…” and, in the new document, use Zotero → “Unlink Citations” to convert the citations and bibliography to plain text. You can then download that second document as a PDF or other type of file, while keeping active citations in the original document in case you need to make further changes. Zotero will prompt you to create a copy if you try to download your original document.

Built for Collaboration

Zotero and Google Docs are a perfect combination for people writing together. Zotero groups are a great way to collect and manage materials for a shared project, and Google Docs integration allows you and your coauthors to insert and edit citations in a shared document. Groups are free and can contain an unlimited number of members, so you can collaborate with as many people as you like.

While citing from the same library allows everyone to make changes to items in Zotero and have them reflected in the document, if you don’t want to work from a group, that’s fine too: Zotero can generate correct citations and bibliography entries even for items people add from their own libraries.

Get Started

Ready to try it out? Open a document in Google Docs and look for the Zotero menu. If you don’t see it, make sure you have Zotero Connector 5.0.42 for Chrome or Firefox.

See our documentation to learn more about using Zotero with Google Docs.

If you run into any trouble, let us know in the Zotero Forums.

While Zotero has always been able to download PDFs automatically as you save items from the web, these PDFs are often behind publisher paywalls, putting them out of reach of many people.

Enter Unpaywall, a database of legal, full-text articles hosted by publishers and repositories around the world. Starting in Zotero 5.0.56, if you save an item from a webpage where Zotero can’t find or access a PDF, Zotero will automatically search for an open-access PDF using data from Unpaywall.

It can do the same when you use “Add Item by Identifier” to create a new item, and a new “Find Available PDF” option in the item context menu lets you retrieve PDFs for existing items in your library.

We operate our own lookup service for these searches with no logging of the contents of requests.

Unpaywall is produced by Impactstory, a nonprofit dedicated to making scholarly research more open, accessible, and reusable, and we’re proud to support their work by subscribing to the Unpaywall Data Feed.

Zotero can also now take better advantage of PDFs available via institutional subscriptions. When you use “Add Item by Identifier” or “Find Available PDF”, Zotero will load the page associated with the item’s DOI or URL and try to find a PDF to download before looking for OA copies. This will work if you have direct or VPN-based access to the PDF. If you use a web-based proxy, only open-access PDFs will be automatically retrieved using this new functionality, but you can continue to save items with gated PDFs from the browser using the Zotero Connector.

If there are other sources of PDFs you’d like Zotero to use, you can also set up custom PDF resolvers.

Upgrade to Zotero 5.0.56 and Zotero Connector 5.0.41 today to start using these new features.

Today, we’re introducing ZoteroBib, a free service to help people quickly create perfect bibliographies.

Powered by the same technology behind Zotero, ZoteroBib lets you seamlessly add items from across the web — using Zotero’s unmatched metadata extraction abilities — and generate bibliographies in more than 9,000 citation styles. There’s no software to install or account to create, and it works on any device, including tablets and phones. Your bibliography is stored right on your device — in your browser’s local storage — unless you create a version to share or load elsewhere, so your data remains entirely under your control.

ZoteroBib is completely free: we don’t bombard you with ads or charge you (or your school) money for full functionality or more advanced citation styles. And since it’s built by the team behind Zotero, and backed by the same open-source community, you can count on the same expertise and attention to detail that people rely on when they write dissertations and scholarly papers using Zotero.

To add an item to your bibliography, simply find it online in another tab and paste the URL into the ZoteroBib search box. You can also paste or type in an ISBN, DOI, PubMed ID, or arXiv ID, or you can search by title. ZoteroBib will fetch bibliographic info for the item and add it to your bibliography. ZoteroBib can import high-quality data from journal articles, books, newspaper and magazine articles, blog posts, webpages, and more. If it doesn’t find what you’re looking for or the data is incomplete, the manual editor allows you to enter data by hand.

As you write, you can quickly copy citations with page numbers to the clipboard for pasting into your document:

When you’re done, a single click copies a formatted bibliography to the clipboard for pasting into your word processor, or you can generate a bibliography in HTML to add to a webpage. And of course, if you find you need a bit more power, you can easily save your data to Zotero or export it for loading into any other reference manager.

Go to ZoteroBib

Not sure whether ZoteroBib or Zotero is right for you? See the ZoteroBib FAQ.

(Finally, if you’re a happy Zotero user, stay tuned: we’ll be bringing some features from ZoteroBib back to the Zotero web interface soon!)