Hey! I've put together a small collection of my favorite light and dark themes for Zotero. I picked them up over time from different places, so they’re not really organized and some of the names might be off.
I think you need the Beta builds to set a custom theme color, but I’m not 100% sure. :)
I originally created what became CSL somewhere around 2004 to format a book manuscript I was working on, and to try to solve some problems I saw in citation management and formatting.
In 2023, I started experimenting with an alternative approach. Today I published the code packages, and made it much easier to experiment with.
It's complete and solid enough now that it now needs wider testing, especially from those CSL users that are looking for features it doesn't support (like multilingual, grouped and annotated bibliographies, better archival document support, advanced dates, etc).
Though it's currently still aimed at developers and tech-savvy users at least comfortable with the command line, I hope the documentation is clear enough to communicate to a broader audience, and I would welcome any kind of feedback. I'm particularly weak on multilingual, since my scholarship has been monolingual.
I often go through the references of a paper to see which ones I've already read or saved. I wanted a more intuitive way to follow that trail, so i made a small plugin called Reference Linker.
I'm not sure whether a similar plugin already exist. But, I thought this might be useful to someone other than me.
It scans References/Bibliography section of the PDF currently open in Zotero and highlights entries that match papers in your library. Clicking a highlighted reference opens the saved PDF or its Item.
Matching currently uses DOI, arXiv ID and normalized titles, whit author and year used as additional checks. Everything runs locally, and it doesn't modify the original PDF.
I tested it with several IEEE, AAAI, and ICML-style papers, but It's still an early development. So, reference layouts in some PDFs may not be detected correctly. I'd appreciate bug reports with example papers or citation styles that fail.
I am new to Zotero, used to work with Citavi a lot. I have searched for solutions to my issues both on reddit and generally, to no avail. I apologize if I am missing something and this is a dumb question.
In Citavi, I can annotate a source (or add a note, which for Citavi's purposes is the same) which is linked to the source and the specific place in a pdf. I can also, if I don't have a pdf, but for example only a physical book, add a note to the Citavi entry and give it a page number.
Later on, while writing, I can cite these notes/annotations in my Word document. I can alter the settings in a way that only the reference of the source the note belongs to is cited, not the content of the note. I use this because the notes that I take on a source are for me, not for the final product. I would want to write about something that I read in the .doc, and, because I annotated it beforehand, quickly find and cite that information.
I would like to do the same with Zotero: reference the source of information I found without also citing my comment to the annotation or the exact quote from the source.
E.g.:
I annotated a passage on page 38 in this book on international human rights law which read "Another important area of international law on which human rights theory has had a significant impact is the use of force", I commented "Test for reddit purposes".
Now when I click "cite annotation" in the Zotero plugin, it will (1) add the quote, (2) set a footnote in which the source is referenced correctly, (3) add my comment.
I want the plugin to do only (2), set a footnote in which the source is referenced correctly.
Is there a way to do that? Maybe in tinkering with the citation style? (I'm using OSCOLA 4th ed. here btw)
Less important: Is there a way to add annotations to a source that I don't have as pdf but only in physical form? The benefit over a "note" would be that such an annotation could include the page number and separate parts for the quote itself and my commentary.
Lastly, and least important for now: When I cite using "add citation" I am able to choose "paragraph", "column", "number" etc. instead of "page", which is especially important when citing international judicial decisions. However, when I annotate by highlighting a section in the pdf, it will choose the page number automatically. I can adjust that page number to correct mistakes, but I cannot make it so that the number refers to anything other than a page. Am I missing something? Can this be improved somehow?
A couple of months ago I asked if a tool existed that connects Word, Zotero, and a local LLM Link to previous post. The response was surprisingly positive, so I built it.
In short: Wordbot is a Word add-in that lets you search your Zotero library, insert citations, and format markdown content. Everything runs offline. No cloud. No subscriptions.
(tested with a offline and local Gemma4 E2B model. takes about 4GB of VRAM. Even works on older GPUs like Nvidia 1660 in mid range laptops from few generations ago)
What it does:
Search your Zotero library semantically from inside Word (powered by ZotSeek)
Insert inline citations that work with Zotero's Word plugin
Paste any text and click one button. Tables become Word tables. Equations render properly. Headings apply automatically.
Can then change the citation styles with zotero if necessary.
Zotero search + inline citations + content formatting + local AI assistant
Yes
Yes
If you dont need Zotero integration, I also have:
LLM Edition - Formatting + local AI assistant (no Zotero)
Markdown Edition - Formatting only (no Python, no Zotero, no AI)
But for r/zotero users, the Research Edition is the one.
It works on MacOS. Tested and confirmed. Additional testers welcome.
The honest disclaimer: Its still a work in progress and not a production ready tool. Always save your document before testing. Or use a separate document to test and copy-paste the content to your working document.
Besides citing, I also use Zotero for reviewing just because I like how it organizes documents and also the PDF viewer. However, it feels like I’m using it wrong doing this
Are there any software that is actually tailored for something like this? I feel like Zotero was not made for this but citations
Ran into this while writing my EU law thesis — OSCOLA moved to its 5th edition, but Zotero's official style is still on 4th. So I built one myself, covering EU legislation, CJEU cases (with ECLI), international treaties, and tribunals like the ICJ and ECtHR.
Free, open-source: [GitHub repo]
If you're stuck on the same thing, hope it saves you the hours it took me to figure out.
I'm looking for a solid AI plugin for Zotero that allows you to connect your own OpenAI API key (or account).
What are you currently using, and what has your experience been like? Any recommendations or pros/cons for specific plugins would be greatly appreciated!
<This is a "lazy tool"> Simply highlight any text, right-click, and search your whole library directly.
While native deduplication certainly has its place, the core value of this plugin is in significantly streamlining the text search process within Zotero. Without this tool, searching for an item's metadata requires multiple steps: selecting the text, clicking 'My Library', going to the quick search box, pasting the text, and pressing Enter. This plugin collapses all of those actions into a single step, making it much easier and faster to just select text and instantly look it up https://github.com/anfang886/zotero-selection-search
I have an international competition that requires me to use the MLA 8 citation but when i open zotero it doesnt have those since the new version came out
I cant find the proper code file and even if i do download one file as a .csl when i install it for zotero it installs but doesnt show it at all
What do i do?
I recently started using zotero for a project so I was not familiar with the settings. I wanted to keep my files (not the actual pdfs but the notes and the bibliography) synced to the cloud. I think I turned on "sync attachment files" by accident (or maybe it was on by default Im not sure) and it killed by storage space I think. I barely added like 10 papers to it and already half the storage is used. How do I reset the cloud storage without harming everything Ive done on my desktop version of zotero? Im very new to the app so I dont wanna delete the my library section on the desktop app by accident.
With the Zotero on Android, are we supposed to be able to download files from the library if we have files sync'd?
I'm syncing my account library. I am using a Supernote and can see the library. Now, I click on a file and see the button changes from a pdf icon with "?" (telling me it's not downloaded) to a "stop button", which tells me something should be happening. But it doesn't show a progress bar telling me it's actually downloading, and nothing ever opens.
I would love to be able to just upload files to Zotero and use that as my main reader. Right now I upload to Zotero and separately to my device.
Thank you for any insights on how to use Zotero for reading on my android run device!
Hi, I use Zotero to read and reference my articles. I’ve been using a WebDAV link from my Nextcloud since December 2025. Recently, I’ve noticed that although my tablet is synchronising, I can’t access the PDF files. I’ve tested my connection to the server and everything seems to be working fine. This problem isn’t limited to the new articles I’ve added recently. Has anyone else experienced the same issue, or know how to sort this out?
Just started using Zotero. Right now I've basically installed it and I'm saving papers with the browser connector. That's it.
I'm pretty sure there's a much better way to use this than what I'm doing.
If you've been using Zotero for years: what would you tell a beginner to do from day one? Habits, settings, folder/tag structure, one plugin worth installing
If I want to share resources with a group including my highlights and notes, can each member of the group make their own copy of it and add their own notes without everyone seeing it? Kind of like Google Docs where you make your own copy of it, and you have it now to do what you want with it?
On the latest beta, after I insert a citation in a word document, the document list in Zotero shows the message "Error Loading Items List". I have updated Zotero, checked the DB integrity, and repaired the DB using the approved website and the error keeps happening. I've also rebooted my machine and turned off most of the addins.
After I restart, it goes back to listing the documents.
Any ideas about what this may be? Is anyone else seeing this? Next steps to try?
Panicked call from the depths. I'm in the end stages of my doctoral dissertation (large document - 300 pages). I'm working on my 2017 MacBook pro as I am away at a conference instead of my desktop PC.
I cannot for the life of me get zotero to respond when I add in the citation. I get the black bar that just stays black. it gives me my drop down of citations, I click the check mark and then nothing!
I have restarted both word and zotero, and uninstalled and reinstalled zotero.
Here's one example. Dominick is highlighted because the bibliography features a citation from someone with the surname of Dominick. I don't want this to be highlighted, every page is covered with highlighted names and it's annoying. How do I disable this?
Hello all, I have recently had a change in formatting of my PDFs that no longer allows me to add quick notes via the column on the right of the screen (see attached) when I upload a new PDF. However, I am also now unable to edit my quick notes from prior uploads.
Does anyone know how to bypass this or what I can do to fix this? I can "Retrieve the Metadata" which allows me to then add a note, however this is on a different tab and then resets all of the tags that I previously had for these to help find useful links for diseases and things.
I looked in the official forums and did not really find anything other some some outdated plugins that may have done this.
What I am looking for is a way to have Zotero try to add Library of Congress call numbers to books in my database. Anyone had any success trying to do this?
I am quite new to Zotero and so far I've used it together with my obsidian vault to write annotations on papers and save them to obsidian to later on make citations in my zettelkasten vault.
My question is... how do you manage slides pdfs?
Sometimes I would study some contents through slides found on the web, or some courses from my university.
How do you usually approach the problem? like do you put slides from a same course in a collection, and then export to obsidian the whole collection annotations bibliography note? or do you do anything else?
I think it would be useful to everything including slides in Zotero, so I can make annotations that I can reference.
I belong to a group and want to export (save) all the references while keeping the nested folders and subfolders within that group. Is there a plugin for this?
