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Zotero Complete Guide

Tips and Tricks

Tip 1

When you select an item in the middle column, you can highlight all collections that contain this item by holding down the "Option" key on Mac OS X, the "Control" key on Windows, or the "Alt" key on Linux. See on Mac OS X below:
Tip 1 - See Collections with Items

Tip 2

Press "Shift" and “+” (plus) on the keyboard within a collections list or items list to expand all attachments, and “-” (minus) to collapse them.
Tip 2: Expand and Collapse Collections or Items Shortcut

Tip 3

To see the number of items in the selected library or collection, click an item in the middle column and use the Select All shortcut: 

Command + A on Mac OS X or

Control + A on Windows and Linux

 A count will appear in the right column:

Tip 3: Command + A Shortcut in Zotero

Tip 4

Are you unable to adjust the size of the Zotero pane downwards beyond a certain point? Close the tag selector (e.g. by dragging the splitter above the tag selector down), as it has a minimum height.

Tip 4: Close the tag selector

Tip 5

You can convert the contents of the "Title" and "Publisher" fields to either sentence or title case by right-clicking the field and using the Transform Text menu.

Tip 5: Change Title or Publisher to Title Case or Sentence Case

Tip 6

In the "Date" field in the right panel of Zotero, you can type in "Yesterday", "Today" or "Tomorrow" and the date field will automatically convert into the respective dates. See how to do this here: 

Tip 6: Date Field Shortcut - Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday

Tip 7

When using Quick Copy, holding the “Shift” key while dragging and dropping items into a text document will insert citations instead of full references.

Tip 7: Create an automatic bibliographic citation with quick copy

Tip 8

You can click the DOI and URL field labels to open the field link:

Tip 8: DOI & URL Quick Links

Tip 9

Manually adding authors to a Zotero item?

You can use Shift + Enter (Shift + Return on Mac) after typing each name as a faster alternative to clicking the “+” button.

Tip 9: Shift + Enter to add new author automatically

Tip 10

Need more than one Zotero library? You can use multiple profiles to keep your libraries separated. You can also maintain separate libraries within a single profile using Zotero Groups.

Tip 11

You can convert URL addresses in the bibliography to working hyperlinks using the AutoFormat function in Microsoft Word or LibreOffice. Follow these steps:

    1. Click the Remove Field Codes button in the Zotero menu. This converts Zotero citations to plain text and disconnects your document from Zotero, so you should save a new copy of your document and use this function on only the final version.

    2. Select your bibliography (or all of the text in the document, if desired) and apply the Word/LibreOffice AutoFormat (the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl/Cmd-Alt/Option-K in Word)