About Zotero
Zotero is a free, easy to use bibliographic manager that collects, organizes, and helps you cite your research. It has desktop, online, and browser-integrated versions. It comes with the most heavily used citation styles already available, but you can download many more.
You can attach PDFs, take website snapshots, organize your sources into folders, and create bibliographies. It integrates with Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, and Open Office.
Zotero will also index the full text of your documents, allowing you to find exactly what you need.
Downloads
- Zotero DownloadAvailable for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Don't forget to download the connector for the browser you use most, so Zotero can add citations from library databases or Google Scholar.
- Word Processor PluginsThese plugins, available for Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice, create dynamic bibliographies: insert a new in-text citation in your manuscript, and the bibliography will be automatically updated to include the cited item. Correct the title of an item in your Zotero library and with a click of a button the change will be incorporated in your texts.
Zotero Online
Zotero Desktop
Organizing Your Library
You can organize your citations into Collections so that all of the information surrounding one topic is gathered together. Collection names can reflect a specific project or a class title or number similar to a folder on your computer. A reference can be in more than one Collection at at time.
To create a collection in the desktop version:
- Click the Folder icon above the list of Collections
- Give the new Collection a name
To create a collection in the web version:
- Hover to the right of "My Library" and a plus (+) sign will appear
- Click the plus
- A new folder will appear in the list that you can name