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Zotero: A Citation Tool

TriCo Libraries Guide

What is Zotero

zotero icon

Zotero is a free citation management tool that helps you:

  • Save all your citations in a single place
  • Organize your references into collections for different subjects, projects, or courses with tags or folders
  • Store PDFs, notes, images, web pages, and other files with your citations. BMC users: unlimited free storage if you use a brynmawr.edu address
  • Create bibliographies instantly in any standard citation style
  • Cite sources quickly while writing
  • Share references and bibliographies with colleagues, students, or professors

Getting Started

You will need:

  1. The Zotero application
  2. A Zotero.org account
  3. Web browser extensions  

Follow our Zotero setup instructions.

Troubleshooting

The Microsoft Word and OpenOffice word processor plugins are bundled with Zotero and should be installed automatically for each installed word processor when you first start Zotero.

To use Zotero with Google Docs, install the browser extension for your browser.

You can reinstall the plugins later from the Cite → Word Processor Plugins pane of the Zotero preferences. If you're having trouble, see Manually Installing the Zotero Word Processor Plugin or Word Processor Plugin Troubleshooting.

If you previously installed the Firefox versions of the word processor plugins into Zotero 5.0 or Zotero Standalone 4.0, you should uninstall them from Tools → Add-ons.