Zotero Citation Manager: Home

Zotero (pronounced "zoh-TAIR-oh") is a free easy-to-use tool that helps you collect, organize, cite, and share research articles. It allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies. Zotero is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Organizing Your Zotero Library

Get oriented to the structure of Zotero and learn how it can help you organize your references.

Adding Items to Your Zotero Library

Zotero works with library catalogs and databases, publisher websites, Google Scholar, and other popular websites such as Amazon and NYTimes. See how easy it is to add items from the web to your Zotero library with a single click of the mouse!

Learn to add PDFs that are already saved on your computer to your Zotero library and retrieve or create citation information.

Editing Citation Information 

You may occasionally need to edit a citation you inserted with Zotero--to add page numbers, prefix or suffix information, or to omit the author's name, for example. To do this, click within the text of the citation (or the footnote, depending on the style you're using). The citation should become highlighted in gray--this means you're ready to edit. Now, from the Zotero tools menu in Word, select the button or menu item for Add/Edit Citation or Zotero Edit Citation. This will bring up the insert citation dialog you saw when inserting the citation.

If you see a Red Search Bar, click on the reference you need to edit, and then enter any necessary information in the popup that appears. Hit enter to accept the changes, then hit enter again to insert them. 

Dealing with Duplicates 

You want to avoid saving the same item more than once to your Zotero library because it can create problems with your citations. A single item can be included in as many collections as you want, so there's no need to have duplicates.

Adding Citations Using Microsoft Word

Adding Citations Using Google Docs

Changing Citation Styles

It's easy to change your document to a different citation style. From the Zotero tools menu in Word, select the button or menu item for Document Preferences or Set Doc Preferences. This will bring up the Document Preferences window. Select the citation style you'd like from the list, then click OK. 

Note: if you're changing between an in-text style (e.g., APA or MLA) to a footnotes style (e.g. Chicago), you will need to ensure that your ending punctuation is correct with respect to its placement around the citation. Zotero will not modify this.

Installing Zotero

Install Zotero for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Compatible browsers include Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.

Registering an account with Zotero will allow you to sync your library across more than one personal device, create and join groups, and access your library through the website. You do not have to register to use Zotero, but may do so at any time.