Zotero comes with several excellent time saving keyboard shortcuts. This page lists the default shortcuts and explains how to change them.
Windows Defaults
| Function | Command |
|---|---|
| Open/Close Zotero Pane | Ctrl-Alt-Z |
| Toggle Fullscreen Mode | Ctrl-Alt-F |
| Library | Ctrl-Alt-L |
| Quick Search | Ctrl-Alt-K |
| Create a new item | Ctrl-Alt-N |
| Create a new note | Ctrl-Alt-O |
| Toggle Tag Selector | Ctrl-Alt-T |
| Copy Selected Item Citations to Clipboard | Ctrl-Alt-A |
| Copy Selected Items to Clipboard | Ctrl-Alt-C |
Mac Defaults
| Function | Command |
|---|---|
| Open/Close Zotero Pane | Cmd-Shift-Z |
| Toggle Fullscreen Mode | Cmd-Shift-F |
| Library | Cmd-Shift-L |
| Quick Search | Cmd-Shift-K |
| Create a new item | Cmd-Shift-N |
| Create a new note | Cmd-Shift-O |
| Toggle Tag Selector | Cmd-Shift-T |
| Copy Selected Item Citations to Clipboard | Cmd-Shift-A |
| Copy Selected Items to Clipboard | Cmd-Shift-C |
Changing your Shortcuts
You can change the shortcut keys through your Zotero preferences. To open the preferences pane click the gear icon, this will open the actions dropdown menu. Select preferences from that dropdown menu. Then select the Shortcut Keys tab. You can then switch any of the shortcut keys by simply replacing the default letters with whatever key you would like to use.
Using Shortcut Keys With the Word Plugin
If you like, you can set up shortcut keys for all of the actions in Zotero's Word plugin. The specifics steps for this vary depending on your version of Word. However, you can generally accomplish this by selecting the Tools drowdown menu–> choosing customize–>customize keyboard. This should launch the customize keyboard dialog box. There you can select Macros, and then chose each of the Zotero macros and assign them to keyboard shortcuts of your choosing.