Zotero.configure() and Zotero.displayOptions() replaced by configOptions and displayOptions Zotero.configure() and Zotero.displayOptions() no longer exist. Instead, translators should specify config and display options in the metadata block at the top of the translator, e.g. { "translatorID":"32d59d2d-b65a-4da4-b0a3-bdd3cfb979e7", [...] "configOptions":{"dataMode":"rdf/xml"}, "displayOptions":{"exportNotes":true}, "lastUpdated":"2011-01-11 04:31:00" } "dataMode":"block" and "dataMode":"line" are deprecated It is no longer necessary to specify “dataMode”:“block” or “dataMode”:“line”. If Zotero.read() is passed a numeric value, it reads a specified number of bytes; otherwise, it reads a full line.

translator.setSearch(item) For search translators. Sets the skeleton item object the translator will use for its search. translator.setString(string) For import translators. Sets the string that the translator will import from. translator.setDocument(document) For web translators. Sets the document that the translator will use.

record.leader = "leader goes here"; record.addField(code, indicator, content);

Calling a translator using ''getTranslators'' This code, based on the “COinS.js” code, calls getTranslators() to identify which search translators can make a complete item out of the basic template information already present. Note that translate() is called from within the event handler. Analogous logic could be used to get the right import translator for incoming metadata in an unknown format. var search = Zotero.loadTranslator("search"); search.setHandler("translators", function(obj, translators) { search.setTranslator(translators); search.translate(); }); search.setSearch(item); // look for translators for given item search.getTranslators();

Calling a translator by UUID This is the most common way to use another translator– simply specify the translator type and the UUID of the desired translator. In this case, the RIS translator is being called. var translator = Zotero.loadTranslator("import"); translator.setTranslator("32d59d2d-b65a-4da4-b0a3-bdd3cfb979e7"); translator.setString(text); translator.translate();

Calling other translators Web translators can call other translators to parse metadata provided in a standard format with the help of existing import translators, or to augment incomplete data with the help of search translators. There are several ways of invoking other translators.

Batch Saving You will often need to make additional requests to fetch all the metadata needed, either to make multiple items, or to get additional information on a single item. The most common and reliable way to make such requests is with the utility functions Zotero.Utilities.doGet, Zotero.Utilities.doPost, and Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments. Zotero.Utilities.doGet(url, callback, onDone, charset) sends a GET request to the specified URL or to each in an array of URLs, and then calls function callback with three arguments: response string, response object, and the URL. This function is frequently used to fetch standard representations of items in formats like RIS and BibTeX. The function onDone is called when the input URLs have all been processed. The optional charset argument forces the response to be interpreted in the specified character set. Zotero.Utilities.doPost(url, postdata, callback, headers, charset) sends a POST request to the specified URL (not an array), with the POST string defined in postdata and headers set as defined in headers associative array (optional), and then calls function callback with two arguments: response string, and the response object. The optional charset argument forces the response to be interpreted in the specified character set. Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments(url, callback, onDone, charset) sends a GET request to the specified URL or to each in an array of URLs, and then calls the function callback with a single argument, the DOM document object. Note: The response objects passed to the callbacks above are described in detail in the MDC Documentation. Zotero.Utilities.processAsync(sets, callbacks, onDone) can be used from translators to make it easier to correctly chain sets of asynchronous callbacks, since many translators that require multiple callbacks do it incorrectly [text from commit message, r4262]

for each item, an item ID and label should be stored in the object as a property/value pair.

Passing the object to the Zotero.selectItems function will trigger the selection window, and the function passed as the second argument will receive an object with the selected items, as in this example: Zotero.selectItems(getSearchResults(doc, false), function (items) { if (!items) return; ZU.processDocuments(Object.keys(items), scrape); }); Here, Zotero.selectItems(..) is called with an anonymous function as the callback. As in many translators, the selected items are simply loaded into an array and passed off to a processing function that makes requests for each of them.

Saving Multiple Items Some webpages, such as those showing search results or the index of a journal issue, list multiple items. For these pages, web translators can be written to a) allow the user to select one or more items and b) batch save the selected items to the user's Zotero library. Item Selection To present the user with a selection window that shows all the items that have been found on the webpage, a JavaScript object should be created. Then, for each item, an item ID and label should be stored in the object as a property/value pair. The item ID is used internally by the translator, and can be a URL, DOI, or any other identifier, whereas the label is shown to the user (this will usually be the item's title). Passing the object to the Zotero.selectItems function will trigger the selection window, and the function passed as the second argument will receive an object with the selected items, as in this example: Zotero.selectItems(getSearchResults(doc, false), function (items) { if (!items) return; ZU.processDocuments(Object.keys(items), scrape); }); Here, Zotero.selectItems(..) is called with an anonymous function as the callback. As in many translators, the selected items are simply loaded into an array and passed off to a processing function that makes requests for each of them. Batch Saving You will often need to make additional requests to fetch all the metadata needed, either to make multiple items, or to get additional information on a single item. The most common and reliable way to make such requests is with the utility functions Zotero.Utilities.doGet, Zotero.Utilities.doPost, and Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments. Zotero.Utilities.doGet(url, callback, onDone, charset) sends a GET request to the specified URL or to each in an array of URLs, and then calls function callback with three arguments: response string, response object, and the URL. This function is frequently used to fetch standard representations of items in formats like RIS and BibTeX. The function onDone is called when the input URLs have all been processed. The optional charset argument forces the response to be interpreted in the specified character set. Zotero.Utilities.doPost(url, postdata, callback, headers, charset) sends a POST request to the specified URL (not an array), with the POST string defined in postdata and headers set as defined in headers associative array (optional), and then calls function callback with two arguments: response string, and the response object. The optional charset argument forces the response to be interpreted in the specified character set. Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments(url, callback, onDone, charset) sends a GET request to the specified URL or to each in an array of URLs, and then calls the function callback with a single argument, the DOM document object. Note: The response objects passed to the callbacks above are described in detail in the MDC Documentation. Zotero.Utilities.processAsync(sets, callbacks, onDone) can be used from translators to make it easier to correctly chain sets of asynchronous callbacks, since many translators that require multiple callbacks do it incorrectly [text from commit message, r4262]

Notes Notes are saved similarly to attachments. The content of the note, which should consist of a string, should be stored in the note property of the item's notes property. E.g.: let bbCite = "Bluebook citation: " + bbCite + "."; newItem.notes.push({ note: bbCite });

Zotero will automatically use proxied versions of attachment URLs returned from translators when the original page was proxied, which allows translators to construct and return attachment URLs without needing to know whether proxying is in use. However, some sites expect unproxied PDF URLs at all times, causing PDF downloads to potentially fail if requested via a proxy. If a PDF URL is extracted directly from the page, it's already a functioning link that's proxied or not as appropriate, and a translator should include proxy: false in the attachment metadata to indicate that further proxying should not be performed:

In the very common case of saving the current page as an attachment, set document to the current document, so that Zotero doesn't have to make an additional request: newItem.attachments.push({ title: "Snapshot", document: doc });

scrape[edit] The scrape function is called to save a single item. It is the most interesting function to code in a translator. We first create a new item as returned by detectWeb and then store the metadata in the relevant fields of that item. Along with the metadata, attachments can be saved for an item. These attachments become available even when one is offline. In the function shown below, we make use of another translator called Embedded Metadata. We load this translator and it scrapes information from the meta tags of the web page, filling fields and reducing our work. We can always insert and update information of fields on top of what Embedded Metadata provided.function scrape(doc, url) { var translator = Zotero.loadTranslator('web'); // Embedded Metadata translator.setTranslator('951c027d-74ac-47d4-a107-9c3069ab7b48'); translator.setDocument(doc); translator.setHandler('itemDone', function (obj, item) { // Add data for fields that are not covered by Embedded Metadata item.section = "News"; // Add custom fields if required trans.addCustomFields({ 'twitter:description': 'abstractNote' }); item.complete(); }); translator.getTranslatorObject(function(trans) { // Adjust for multiple item types trans.itemType = "newspaperArticle"; trans.doWeb(doc, url); }); }

Zotero.selectItems(getSearchResults(doc, false), function (items) { if (!items) { return true; } var articles = []; for (var i in items) { articles.push(i); } ZU.processDocuments(articles, scrape);

Generate test cases[edit] Once the code of a translator is prepared, it is recommended to create test cases. These test cases are run daily and help the community to figure out if a translator fails in future and needs any update or complete rewriting. We will generate test cases for MediaWiki translator through Scaffold. Open mediawiki in a new tab. Launch Scaffold and open the translator we have created. Open the "Testing" tab of Scaffold. We need to give a web page as input. For example, open citoid's page. Keeping this web page as the active tab, simply click on the "New Web" button. It will load the web page in the Input pane as a new unsaved test. Select the input entry and click the save button to have the output of test be saved as JSON data. Similarly lets create a test case for a search page. Open this link in a new tab as the active one and then click on "New Web". Once it is loaded, save it. You can see the saved test cases in the "Test" tab of Scaffold. For this search page, you can notice a JSON object as follows.var testCases = [ { "type": "web", "url": "https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?search=Zotero+&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=2pwkmi9qkwlogcnknozyzpco1", "items": "multiple" } ]

Generate testCases (with Scaffold).

An overview of the currently installed translators, giving the option of running their tests, can be accessed by entering the following into the address bar: chrome://zotero/content/tools/testTranslators/testTranslators.html

In most cases, it is not necessary or desirable to write these tests by hand– they can and should be generated by the testing framework using Scaffold; see below.

htmlSpecialChars Function description https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/utilities.js#L153 Zotero.Utilities.prototype.htmlSpecialChars = function(str) @type String Escapes several predefined characters: & (ampersand) becomes &amp; “ (double quote) becomes &quot; ' (single quote) becomes &#039; < (less than) becomes &lt; > (greater than) becomes &gt; and <ZOTEROBREAK/> becomes <br/> <ZOTEROHELLIP> becomes &#8230;

parseMarkup Function description https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/branches/1.0/chrome/content/zotero/xpcom/utilities.js#L206 Zotero.Utilities.prototype.parseMarkup = function(str) @return {Array} An array of objects with the following form: { type: 'text'|'link', text: “text content”, [ attributes: { key1: val [ , key2: val, …] } }</pre> Parses a text string for HTML/XUL markup and returns an array of parts. Currently only finds HTML links (<a> tags)

Zotero.Translate/translators Added Zotero.Utilities.processAsync(sets, callbacks, onDone) – this can be used to make it easier to correctly chain sets of asynchronous callbacks

The functions Zotero.Utilities.HTTP.doGet and Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments run asynchronously. In order to allow them to complete before moving along, follow either function with Zotero.wait() and include Zotero.done() as the onDone in order to signal the translator that it has completed its asynchronous operations.

Don't forget to turn off debug logging

use the debug log accessible through the Zotero preferences pane, under “advanced”.

Zotero.wait DEPRECATED since 3.0

zuphilip commented on Feb 2, 2018 • edited Here is a list of the most common used functions from Zotero.Utilities and Zotero: grep -E -o -h "(ZU|Zotero\.Utilities)\.[^\(]+\(" *.js | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr $ grep -E -o -h "(ZU|Zotero\.Utilities)\.[^\(]+\(" *.js | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr 1533 ZU.xpathText( 831 ZU.xpath( 382 ZU.trimInternal( 272 ZU.processDocuments( 201 ZU.cleanAuthor( 190 Zotero.Utilities.cleanAuthor( 155 Zotero.Utilities.processDocuments( 124 Zotero.Utilities.trimInternal( 98 ZU.doGet( 84 Zotero.Utilities.capitalizeTitle( 81 Zotero.Utilities.trim( 79 ZU.capitalizeTitle( 70 Zotero.Utilities.unescapeHTML( 53 Zotero.Utilities.HTTP.doGet( 47 ZU.strToISO( 30 ZU.unescapeHTML( 27 ZU.cleanISBN( 26 ZU.doPost( 24 ZU.trim( 24 ZU.cleanDOI( 24 Zotero.Utilities.superCleanString( 20 ZU.fieldIsValidForType( 17 Zotero.Utilities.cleanTags( 16 Zotero.Utilities.getItemArray( 14 ZU.cleanISSN( 14 Zotero.Utilities.doGet( 13 ZU.cleanTags( 13 Zotero.Utilities.xpathText( 13 Zotero.Utilities.xpath( 11 Zotero.Utilities.HTTP.doPost( 9 ZU.strToDate( 8 ZU.removeDiacritics( 7 ZU.lpad( 7 ZU.getItemArray( 6 ZU.HTTP.doGet( 6 Zotero.Utilities.strToDate( 5 ZU.superCleanString( 5 Zotero.Utilities.parseContextObject( 4 ZU.formatDate( 4 Zotero.Utilities.getVersion( 4 Zotero.Utilities.getCreatorsForType( 3 ZU.XRegExp( 3 ZU.parseContextObject( 3 ZU.itemTypeExists( 3 ZU.deepCopy( 2 ZU.XRegExp.replace( 2 ZU.quotemeta( 2 ZU.arrayDiff( 2 Zotero.Utilities.text2html( 2 Zotero.Utilities.strToISO( 2 Zotero.Utilities.lpad( 2 Zotero.Utilities.loadDocument( 2 Zotero.Utilities.itemTypeExists( 2 Zotero.Utilities.getLocalizedCreatorType( 2 Zotero.Utilities.createContextObject( 1 ZU.xpathText ( 1 ZU.itemToCSLJSON( 1 ZU.itemFromCSLJSON( 1 ZU.isEmpty( 1 ZU.getCreatorsForType( 1 ZU.doHead( 1 ZU.arrayUnique( 1 Zotero.Utilities.htmlSpecialChars( 1 Zotero.Utilities.getPageRange( 1 Zotero.Utilities.formatDate( 1 Zotero.Utilities.doPost( 1 Zotero.Utilities.composeDoc( grep -E -o -h "(Z|Zotero)\.[^\(\.]+\(" *.js | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr $ grep -E -o -h "(Z|Zotero)\.[^\(\.]+\(" *.js | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr 517 Z.debug( 426 Zotero.selectItems( 371 Zotero.debug( 351 Zotero.Item( 315 Zotero.loadTranslator( 117 Zotero.done( 99 Zotero.wait( 43 Zotero.write( 39 Zotero.read( 31 Z.selectItems( 21 Zotero.getOption( 17 Zotero.nextItem( 15 Z.monitorDOMChanges( 14 Z.Item( 13 Z.getHiddenPref( 7 Zotero.getXML( 5 Zotero.setCharacterSet( 5 Zotero.monitorDOMChanges( 5 Zotero.Collection( 3 Zotero.setProgress( 3 Zotero.nextCollection( 3 Zotero.getHiddenPref( 3 Z.loadTranslator( 2 Zotero.addOption( 2 Z.done( 1 Zotero.doGaleWeb( 1 Zotero.detectGaleWeb( 1 Z.write( 1 Z.wait( 1 Z.setProgress( 1 Z.read( 1 Z.nextItem( 1 Z.getXML( 1 Z.debug ( 1 Z._]*/( 1 Z. ( Thus, maybe we can concentrate on this and divide them into some groups, e.g. CSS path: text, attr xpath: ZU.xpath, ZU.xpathText call websites: ZU.doGet, ZU.processDocuments, ZU.doPost special cleaning functions: ZU.cleanAuthor, ZU.strToISO, ZU.cleanISBN, ZU.cleanDOI, ZU.cleanISSN clean text strings: ZU.trimInternal, ZU.capitalizeTitle, ZU.unescapeHTML, ZU.superCleanString, ZU.cleanTags, ZU.removeDiacritics debug: Z.debug specialized functions: Z.monitorDOMChanges, Z.selectItems, Z.loadTranslator, ...

dataMode For import translators, this sets the form in which the input data is presented to the translator. If set to “rdf/xml”, Zotero will parse the input as XML and expose the data through the Zotero.RDF object. If “xml/dom”, Zotero will expose the data through the function Zotero.getXML().

browserSupport A string containing one or more of the letters g, c, s, i, representing the connectors that the translator can be run in – Gecko (Firefox), Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, respectively. b indicates support for the Bookmarklet (zotero-dev thread) and v indicates support for the translation-server. For more information, see Connectors. Warning: Compatible with Zotero 2.1.9 and later only.

translatorType An integer specifying to which type(s) the translator belongs. The value is the sum of the values assigned to each type: import (1), export (2), web (4) and search (8). E.g. the value of translatorType is 2 for an export translator, and 13 for a search/web/import translator, because 13=8+4+1.

adamsmith September 8, 2017 OK -- your translators are coffeescript too, right? Or do you have a code snipet I could just copy over? emilianoeheyns September 8, 2017 They are at this moment; after the port I'm moving everything to ES6. Anyhow, BBT has externalised the bibtex parser to https://github.com/fiduswriter/biblatex-csl-converter (most of the work having been done by Johannes) for my import parsing, and it takes care of this in the parse phase. It's not as simple as copying a piece of the code, unfortunately.For the stock Zotero translators, wouldn't something like this do the trick? text.replace(/\n+/, function(match) { return match.length == 1 ? " " : "\n\n"; }) (or, if you want HTML) text.replace(/\n+/, function(match) { return match.length == 1 ? " " : "<p>"; }) (which is cheating because it's not valid HTML, but most HTML parsers will deal fairly well. <br><br> is less-cheaty)

// necessary because hlib now uses fetch, which does not allow access to custom headers, // and zotero returns total-results in a custom header

The URL of the search page must start with the same characters as the URL for the single entry pages. For example: http://mywebsite.com/search and http://mywebsite.com/article is good. http://search.mywebsite.com/ and http://mywebsite.com/article is bad.

Scaffold Download Scaffold Scaffold is what's known as a "Sandbox." Using a sandbox essentially means you can muck around with the code without worrying about really messing anything up, since all the important code is kept hidden. In this guide, all code will be written, tested and retested in Scaffold. The makers of Zotero created Scaffold specifically for writing translators. Once installed, launch Scaffold by navigating to the "Tools" menu in your Firefox window and select "Scaffold."

Exporters Exporters also rely on a website providing certain information. In this case, we need a link that allows us to download a citation. For the most part, there are very few export formats. You may have come across them before, labeled as "MARC display" buttons, or a "RefWorks" button. These options are most common in library catalogues and on academic journal databases. This type of translator actually uses two translators, one embedded in the other. This can get quite complicated so we will not cover it in detail in this guide. However, if you do need to write one of these and need a few hints to get started, here are a few (rather technical) pointers. If you do not need to write an exporter please feel free to ignore this section. Use an XPath to grab the link URL of the citation download. Use HTTP get to download the page found at that URL. Call the translator for that type of citation (ie, MARC, Bibtex, etc) to interpret the citation. Save results into Zotero. If you are lost, check one of the many Library Catalogue translators by launching Scaffold and loading the translator code.

Metadata Converters These translators take information that a Webmaster has voluntarily embedded in a webpage, known as metadata, and organizes it into the correct Zotero fields. You can think of metadata as invisible ink that only appears if you know how to find it. Obviously the catch here is that the Webmaster must have included this information in the first place. The practice of including metadata is becoming more common, especially in databases. In the past couple of years, how people display metadata has become more standardized. Because of this standardization, Zotero already supports most sites that have it. Some of the most commonly used metadata convensions are: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative unAPI COinS Embedded RDF If you are a website administrator and want your site to automatically be Zotero compliant, it is best to use one of these systems rather than writing a translator; they are standardized and reliable. Let me repeat that. If you are an administrator and can include standardized metadata, stop reading this guide and add the data! If you are not a website administrator, you might make this recommendation to the site in question.

Using this idea, it is easy to include some javascript generated by a server-side process (eg. JSON object). var e = document.createElement("script"); e.src = 'http://myserver.com/servlet/getfeed?url=http://realhowto.blogspot.com'; e.type="text/javascript"; document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(e);

mixer•last monthIt's a pity you didn't mention Zotero. It's such a great tool for many purposes. Also Calibre now supports highlighting in .djvu and .pdf files. It works well and covers all of my book/research papers related highlighting needs. Check it out!

def format_converted_note(annotation): """Format an annotation so that it translates properly into Zotero note markup.""" annotated_text = extract_exact(annotation) annotation_text = annotation["text"] return """<p style="color: green; text-align: center;">{}</p> <br> <p>{}</p>""".format(annotated_text, annotation_text)

The userID for your Zotero API usage, available here. A developer API key for Zotero, you can make one here. Your Hypothesis username, which should just be the username you use to access the service. Your Hypothesis Developer API key, available here.

This program scans through a Zotero library and checks each URL for Hypothesis annotations. If annotations are found it imports them into the Zotero library as note objects with their associated tags.

two lists of papers from arXiv's

Bibcure - keeps bibtex up to date and normalized, and allows you to download all papers inside your bibtex

What’s interesting however, is that we can also pass an arbitrary string value (e.g. ”| ” ) to be used as an indentation:

); no indenta, pero respeta saltos de linea

if (!item.notes) continue for (note of item.notes.filter(note => note.note.includes(Zotero.getHiddenPref('note-search.term')))) { Zotero.write(`<h1>${escapeHtml(item.citationKey)}</h1>\n`) Zotero.write(note.note)

function escapeHtml(unsafe) { return unsafe .replace(/&/g, '&amp;') .replace(/</g, '&lt;') .replace(/>/g, '&gt;') .replace(/"/g, '&quot;') .replace(/'/g, '&#039;');}

dstillman September 4, 2021 You can try ZU.cleanTags().

emilianoeheyns September 8, 2017 That's what BBT does now. One newline is a space, two is a paragraph break.

dstillman June 29, 2020 Close Zotero, make a backup of zotero.sqlite in your Zotero data directory, temporarily disable auto-sync in the Sync pane of the preferences (if you're using syncing), and then run this from Tools → Developer → Run JavaScript:var s = new Zotero.Search();s.addCondition('note', 'contains', '&lt;i&gt;');var ids = await s.search();for (let id of ids) { let item = Zotero.Items.get(id); let note = item.getNote(); item.setNote(Zotero.Utilities.unescapeHTML(note)); await item.saveTx();}return ids.length + " item(s) updated";This will convert all notes that have a double-encoded <i>. If there are other notes, you could change it to check for '&lt;b&gt;' for <b> or similar.If you're happy with the results, you can re-enable auto-sync. jmgmbl June 29, 2020 This worked perfectly—thank you so much! I wished I'd asked years ago now.

DWL-SDCA: That's not the issue here. All notes in Zotero are HTML already, and copied HTML output (not HTML code) should be properly handled. Their concern is that report view isn't interpreting these particular notes as HTML when it displays them

Zotero recommends storing titles in sentence case. Right-clicking on an item’s title, allows you to convert that title to sentence case.

Zotero Item URI Say you want to send a friend a link to an item in your public Zotero library or in a group on zotero.org. Right now this is  a cumbersome process: Go online, search for the item, copy the link from the URL bar… With the “Item URI” Translator, you can simply drag and drop a link to the online version of the item. Setting this up takes three steps Download the file “Item URI.js” from here and place it in the directory “translators” in your Zotero data folder. Restart Firefox/Zotero In the Zotero Preferences go to the “Export” and set the Default Output Format to “Item URI” (this will be towards the bottom of the list) You can now take advantage of Zotero’s quick copy functionality and drag&drop links from the item in your client right into an email or a blogpost. You can also use the shortcut for “Copy Selected Items –  ctrl+alt+c on Linux/Windows, cmd+shift+c on Mac – to copy the URI to you clipboard. It will look something like this: http://zotero.org/users/76252/items/UUKSSZVK

dstillman September 2, 2019 Does the target regexp pass in the Metadata pane after you load the URL in the Browser tab? The current version of Scaffold will run detectWeb even if the target doesn’t match, but the target needs to match for detectWeb to run in the Connector. (We’ve fixed that for the next version.)

adam3smith commented on May 6, 2018 @zuphilip theoretically "update translators" from the Connector should be all that's needed

the callback function with Zotero.done() isn't actually necessary here anymore - it is a relic from Zotero before version 3. The above could be rewritten as ZU.processDocuments(URIs, scrape)

metha

Gabriel_p March 16, 2017 Thank you for taking the time to work on this @BBUCommander! Hopefully you can address the concerns raised at the pull request so it can be included as soon as possible.

BBUCommander March 16, 2017 edited March 16, 2017 I have created a work-in-progress pull request which implements my take on this: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/pull/1199Currently the displayed format is always the ISO date because this is the format I prefer, but a final solution would probably create a user setting to toggle between ISO or locale dates with locale being the default. Alternatively users could choose a custom date format. I am fine with any solution that allows ISO dates.

Gabriel_p March 15, 2017 Too bad. If I could write code in JS I'd get right to it. Hopefully we won't have to see another 7 years go by before this is implemented :(

adamsmith February 9, 2014 edited February 9, 2014 yeah, I'd be against ISO dates, too,

YYYY-MM-DD is a format for computers.

bwiernik February 9, 2014 To add a different perspective to this discussion, I personally hate the YYYY-MM-DD standardized format for reading. Unless it is can be preferenced, I definitely would not want a standardized display of dates to be implemented.

I'll echo the comments above that the center pane date column can be very hard to read if I have sorted by something other than date (which I know it sorts correctly). I have dates appearing as "2013", "October 24, 2013", "October 2013", "2013/10", "2013/10/24", "10/24/2013", and "2013-10-24". Reading these is manageable, but it does slow me down. Is there any way for the center pane's date column to display dates in a consistent format?

YaYaTurre June 4, 2018 edited June 4, 2018 I want to produce footnotes and bibliographical references for citations i.e. newspaper articles, reports, manuscripts, etc. that are in the DD MM YYYY format. Preferably like DD/MM YYYY. (26/4 1998).So this: "Nobelpristagaren Alfvén Kämpar Med Centern Mot Kärnkraftsamhället,” Norrköpings Tidningar, June 10, 1976, 8.Becomes this: "Nobelpristagaren Alfvén Kämpar Med Centern Mot Kärnkraftsamhället,” Norrköpings Tidningar, 10/6 1976, 8.Please let me know if you need any additional info. Thank you! damnation June 4, 2018 edited June 4, 2018 1. go here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/master/chicago-fullnote-bibliography.csl2. Copy all that code3. Go here: http://editor.citationstyles.org/codeEditor/4. Paste all the code in the box in the bottom over the code in there5. Switch to the visual editor (on top)6. Top right: click on "Example citations"7. Untick anything and tick the "article-newspaper" one8. You should now see "Lisa W. Foderaro, “Rooftop Greenhouse Will Boost City Farming,” New York Times, April 6, 2012."9. click on the "April 6, 2012" part10. .... follow the video I made for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOor64T4RvY&feature=youtu.be (note I'm using a different style as the chicago note style is huge and is lame; you just need to wait though!)make sure to change the file ID, self link and filename all to the same new name (like in the video). otherwise your new style will get overwritten with the next update. YaYaTurre June 4, 2018 Whoa! Thank you so much! You have really saved my hide. Thanks again!

Personally I'd want Zotero to have it's own field for setting the output datetime format, rather than pick it up from the OS

the solution from Simon August 21, 2012 worked for me.

If you don't have plans to fix this bug, then I must admit, I will stop having plans to use Zotero.

If you mean the actual Date field, that's always displayed in the format used by the original source,

As @CoNsTaN5foz said in 2020, there is a local language setting in Zotero/Preferences/Advanced that when set to "English (UK)" will give you dd/mm/yyyy 24-hour time. I used to have my Zotero with that setting. But somehow with my switch to the beta stream [probably my own fault] I lost that setting and until your question I had not tried to find it again until today. I still cannot get YYYY-MM-DD + 24h time but I'd love to have that format available.

Fields like date published are very flexible and depends on how the item was imported

        if (year) {
            if (month) {
                if (day) {
                    item.date = year + "-" + month + "-" + day;
                }
                else {
                    item.date = month + "/" + year;
                }
            }
            else {
                item.date = year;
            }
        }

RadialThing October 16, 2018 Hi, thanks for responding.Steps to reproduce:Windows OS regional settings are set to to English (UK) and date settings adjusted to yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm. Zotero (/Juris-M) is set to Automatic (English). Expected behaviour:Zotero displays dates in lists as per the Windows OS settings, which is yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm.Actual behaviour:Zotero displays dates in dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm format.Preferred resolution is that Zotero follows the OS wide settings. Work around would be to be able to correct the date format in Zotero.

dr_avk February 12, 2018 I have the same problem.Zotero 5.0.35.1And I can not understand, why it is impossible to add Date-Time format option in the Preferences? Let users decide what format they want to use in the User Interface.Am I right?

emilianoeheyns September 27, 2021 I didn't account for spaces in the key field; the current version of BBT would have picked up keys without spaces like [extra=ADSBibcode], the next version of BBT will also support [extra=ADS\ Bibcode]

jspilker September 22, 2021 Thanks so much for this, very much appreciated!If any astros from the future find this thread, you can use Better Bibtex to swipe the ADS Bibcode from the Extra field and use that as your cite key. This assumes that the format in the Extra field remains as "ADS Bibcode: xxxxxx", but you can also alter it if things change in the future. Go to Zotero -> Preferences -> Better Bibtex -> Citation keys (tab), and in the Citation key format box, enter:[Extra:transliterate:select=3] | [auth:lower:alphanum][shortyear]To break that down:- the [Extra:transliterate:select=3] part will search the Extra field, remove any unsafe characters ('transliterate'), and return all words starting with the 3rd. This removes the first two words, "ADS Bibcode:", from the full string so only the bibcode itself is used for the citekey.- In case there is no text in the Extra field, the cite key will revert by default to lastnameYY, which is what the [auth:lower:alphanum][shortyear] produces.

dstillman September 22, 2021 We've pushed out this change. Your Zotero Connector should auto-update within 24 hours, or you can update manually by clicking Update Translators in the Advanced pane of the Zotero Connector preferences.

dstillman September 21, 2021 I think there's virtually no scenario where the citekey should be imported from the web Oh, OK. This was done on purpose, with the idea being that some astronomers might want to use a different citation key but that this would be a reasonable default.

As Zotero is planning for a Citekey field in the futre

my suggestion is that when importing from ADS, the Extra field should contain only the "ADS Bibcode: bibcode" line, and the "Citation Key: bibcode" line should be removed.

The issue is that BBT uses that same "Citation Key: usertext" format to override the citation keys that it generates by default according to the user's preferences

However in recent Zotero versions when I add a new reference from ADS with the Firefox connector, all entries are auto-populated with text in the "Extra" field. The extra text consists of two lines that list the ADS bibcode, for example:Citation Key: 1965ApJ...142..419PADS Bibcode: 1965ApJ...142..419P

jspilker September 21, 2021 Another astronomer here - I think this update may have broken the way that Zotero interfaces with some extensions, specifically Better BibTeX.

ADS Bibcode lookup has been added

M B October 30, 2014 Maybe somehow I can include "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/utils/idconv/v1.0/?ids={z:DOI}&format=json&versions=no" to use Zotero DOI field to convert to PMID?

M B November 1, 2014 edited November 1, 2014 But maybe there some workaround? I see, that PMID is stored in Zotoro "extra" field. So I could use "_urlTemplate": "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/{z:extra}", but how to strip/replace/remove "PMID: " string in the begining of {z:extra} value inside json script? How to strip/replace/remove "PMCID: [0-9]*" at the end?

With the exception of Item Type (CSL Type) and Date variables (CSL Issued, etc.), variables entered in Extra will not override corresponding values entered in proper Zotero fields.

Enter each variable on a separate line at the top of the Extra field

Citeable Fields not Included in Zotero These item fields are not yet formally supported in Zotero. For citation purposes, you can convert an item of a different type to one of these types by entering them in the Extra field in this format: CSL Variable: Value For example: PMID: 123456 Status: in press Original Date: 1886-04-01 Director: Kubrick || Stanley Field CSL Variable PMID PMID The PubMed identifier. PMCID PMCID The PubMed Central identifier. Status Status The publication status of an item (e.g., “forthcoming”, “in press”, “advance online publication”). Submitted Date Submitted The date an item was submitted for publication. Reviewed Title Reviewed Title The title of a reviewed work. Chapter Number Chapter Number The number of the chapter within a book. Archive Place Archive Place The geographic location of an archive. Event Date Event Date The date an event took place. Enter in ISO format (year-month-day). Event Place Event Place The geographic location of an event. Original Date Original Date The original date an item was published. Enter in ISO format (year-month-day). Original Title Original Title The original title of a work (e.g., the untranslated title). Original Publisher Original Publisher The publisher of the original version of an item (e.g., the untranslated version). Original Publisher Place Original Publisher Place The geographic location of the publisher of the original version of an item (e.g., the untranslated version). Original Author Original Author A type of Creator. The original creator of a work. Director Director A type of Creator. The director of a film, recording, or broadcast. In Zotero, “Director” is mapped to CSL author. If you need special labels for directors—“(Dir.)”, enter the Director label in Extra. Editorial Director Editorial Director A type of Creator. The managing editor of a publication (“Directeur de la Publication” in French). Illustrator Illustrator A type of Creator. The illustrator of a work.

For citation purposes, you can convert an item of a different type to one of these types by entering them in the Extra field in the following format: Type: CSL Type For example: Type: dataset Item Type CSL Type Dataset dataset A raw dataset. Figure figure A figure included in a scientific or academic work. Musical Score musical_score The written score for a musical work. Pamphlet pamphlet An informally-published work. Typically smaller and less technical than a Report. Book Review review-book A review of a book. Enter these as Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper Article, depending on where they were published, by providing a “Reviewed Author” creator. Treaty treaty A legal treaty between two nations.

Library Catalog The catalog or database an item was imported from. This field is used, for example, in the MLA citation style. Uses of this field are broader than actual library catalogs. Call Number The call number of an item in a library. For citing archival sources, also include the Call Number in Loc. in Archive (if applicable).

Archive Mainly for archival resources, the archive where an item was found. Also used for repositories, such as government report databases, institutional repositories, or subject repositories. Loc. in Archive The location of an item in an archive, such as a box and folder number or other relevant location information from the finding aid. Include the subcollection/call number, box number, and folder number together in this field. For additional tips on citing archival sources in Zotero, see here.

You might find using a JSON validator helpful (e.g., https://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/).

after adding to engines.json any of the engines listed in http://egh.github.io/zotero-lookup-engines/ (say. e.g. the LOC engine),

i modified the engines.json adding the isidore engine with the script given by m.pouyllau (https://gitlab.huma-num.fr/pouyllau/ISIDORtero).

I tried {z:issn}，but the lookup engine won't show up in the UI. I also tried {z:pulisher} or {z:pulication}, and they won't work too.

the filename for attached pdfs and links, I did some exploration in the data structures, and it seems they are obtainable simply by {z:title}.

item.getField(param);

[itemOpenURL["rft.date"][0].substr(0, 4)]

OpenURL Source Mapping

egh June 29, 2019 Also see http://egh.github.io/zotero-lookup-engines/

bwiernik April 20, 2019 Currently the only way to add engines is to edit the engines.json file in the “locate” folder in your Zotero data directory: https://zotero.org/support/zotero_dataSee here for some example additional engines:https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bwiernik/zotero-tools/master/engines.json

bwiernik September 16, 2017 edited May 7, 2018 It’s in your Zotero data directory. This defaults to C:/Users/:username:/Zotero You can also open the folder from the Advanced pane of the Zotero preferences.

Does anything like this still work with 5.0?

You may be able to automatically detect the OpenURL resolver for your institution by clicking the “Search for resolvers” button.

By default, Zotero uses the OpenURL service of WorldCat.org

Library Lookup - looks up the items in your library of choice using OpenURL

revised the all "_hidden" to false, so the issue was solved

The citation style determines whether these abbreviations will appear with or without periods

At the top of the screen, your items are placed on three bands. By default the top layer shows items per month, the middle band by years, the bottom band by decades. The white areas in the bottom two bands show the area currently shown in the top band. You can move along the timeline using click & drag or by entering a year into the “Jump to Year” field and pressing enter. Clicking on an item in the top band of the timeline select that item in your Zotero library.

Zotero automatically generates journal abbreviations using the information in the Publication field of items. It first compares them to a list of journal titles from PubMed, then a list of words, and finally an algorithm for abbreviations according to ISO norms

Zotero automatically embeds bibliographic information with the bibliography in COinS format. This way, anyone browsing the site using Zotero (as well as several other reference managers) will be able to import the items from the bibliography.

Go to the Simple Text Query form and enter a reference or list of references into the search box. Optional: select List all possible DOIs per reference to return multiple results select Include PubMed IDs in results to include PubMed IDs

When items are merged, the fields of each item prior to the merge are added to a note.

use these plugins (for Zotero, at the EdTech Hub)

Select an item in the center column and hold Ctrl

Up to six tags can be assigned colors

press Shift + Enter when you have selected a tag

paste a multi-line list of identifiers in the unexpanded text field. It is not possible to add mixed lists of identifiers, i.e. you cannot add a list containing some ISBNs and some DOIs.

Using the nick “adamsmith,”

Rename and move existing files This step is necessary if you already have digital files in your Zotero library and want them to be renamed and moved to the same location as any future files. To rename and move existing files: Sort your Zotero library using the paperclip icon, so all the references with attachments are at the top. Select all the references with attachments. Right-click on the selected files. Choose Manage Attachments → Rename Attachments. This should both rename those files and move them to your new preferred location.

these useful features (among others): Standardizes your file naming conventions Changes the destination folder of your Zotero files to the location of your choice Extracts your annotations from PDF files

Zotero is the best tool for almost anyone doing serious research

bwiernik May 8, 2020 @floriand The Zutilo plug-in add the ability to relate all selected items together in the right click menu.

emilianoeheyns May 17, 2019 It relies on there being lines of the form cites: citationkey in the extra field.

MDnotes+Zotfile use the Zotero URI Scheme to deeplink to the PDF on the respective page

BibDesk and JabRef can automatically rename and move PDFs. This means either of them are basically equivalent to Zotero + BetterBibTex + Zotfile.

Zotero with the BetterBibTeX Plugin

You export the citations only, NOT the PDFs or notes, etc. You have to add those afterward to each record.

Zotero does NOT work with Office 365 (Word Online)

I am surprised that once it is in my library the date is well retrieved, but when it is in the feed there is no date appearing

For Vancouver users, be aware that the version of Vancouver used at WNE is slightly different than the official style. The main difference is in the number of authors -- at WNE we list up to three authors, while in Vancouver style the number is seven. 

Vancouver and APA are included in Zotero by default. When using APA Style, make sure you select American Psychological Association 7th Ed.

Sentence Case In both APA and Vancouver formats, article titles are written out in sentence case. However, sometimes Zotero gets confused and imports titles in Title Case. To fix this, start from the Zotero library and right click on the article title in the right-hand pane --> Transform Text --> Sentence Case. You may need to fix the capitalization of proper nouns

but most importantly, put 'Type: article' at the top of Extra. That will get cited correctly as a preprint for styles that support it and will be migrated to a Preprint item when that type is added.

Download the document

Zotero (Firefox extension)

the capitalization on titles in your bibtex file should match what's on the paper. The bib style should enforce capitalization, not your bibliography—your bib should faithfully represent what's printed on the paper.

Might Zotero soon have a right-click mechanism to fix all-caps author names?

citeproc.js is the part of Zotero that takes the data in Zotero, and the citation style you pick, and then formats the citations and bibliography the way you need them to.

You should not use shortDOI in references

“Verify DOIs” tries to connect to publishers’ websites (rather than to doi.org only)

activate citeproc-js’s Extra parsing function and override the value stored in the DOI field

Unfortunately, without Long DOI being saved, there isn’t a way to look it up—the shortdoi.org API doesn’t provide a way to reverse lookup Long DOIs from shortDOIs.

bwiernik Brenton M. Wiernik

bwiernik June 17, 2018 Although you will still get the best metadata by using the Zotero browser button at the publisher website, Zotero's PDF metadata retrieval has been much improved since January and should now get abstracts and DOIs for most articles.

However, the Retrieve Metadata function relies primarily on Google Scholar's full-text database, which doesn't include DOI information, so this function will rarely yield the best metadata

Only some DOI registration agencies support content negotiation, which is what Zotero uses to retrieve metadata.

Adding by DOI will often give better results than, say, importing from Google Scholar or using the “Retrieve Metadata for PDF” function

Adding by DOI using the magic wand tool is very fast if you already have the DOI (e.g., if you are copying from a reference list), and it will give very good metadata (though it won’t have abstracts), but it won’t automatically download the PDF.

The best way to add items to the library is using the Zotero browser button from the item page on the publisher website. This will get the best metadata and often the PDF if available

dstillman April 17, 2020 Metadata updating is planned, but for now the easiest way to do this is just to use Add Item by Identifier and then select the two items and merge them.

this feature hasn't launched yet. But you'll be able to update metadata for multiple items at once, yes

I respectfully disagree about the advantages. "Add Item by Identifier + Merge Items" requires a copy/paste plus about 8 clicks per item, including a lot of hand-eye movement

the possibility of overwriting current metadata, and the fixes suggested are 1) showing the conflict resolution window and 2) implementing an undo mechanism

Zotero uses currently populated information to do a search

you delete the duplicated pdf file in Zotero but this doesn't remove the file from the Zotero storage folder and there seems to be no simple way to remove unused attachments from the zotero storage folder

One of the biggest issues I have with the workaround of adding a new entry then merging, is that it often results in doubling up of the PDF files

If you have hand-edited your record and you blindly accept the new metadata you risk overwriting good information

the best way to handle updates [re-download and merge] given the current status of available metadata from CrossRef, PubMed, journal publishers,

the experts (adamsmith, bwiernik) and lead developer (dstillman)

Zotero can also export in (English) Wikipedia citation template format.

Enjoy Reading in Distributed Communities Zocurelia supports reading together, especially when your community is spread all over the world, your school, your university or your city.

Likewise, do not include URLs from these academic research databases in reference list entries because these URLs will not resolve for readers