Plugins for Zotero

An active community of Zotero users has developed a variety of plugins to provide enhancements, new features, and interfaces with other programs. Below is an incomplete list.

To install a plugin in Zotero, download its .xpi file to your computer. Then, in Zotero, click “Tools → Add-ons” and drag the .xpi onto the Add-ons window.

Note: For apps and plugins for mobile devices, see mobile.

New Features and Enhancements

Item Metadata Import

  • Zotero Citation Counts Manager, by Erik Schnetter.
    • Look up citation counts from Crossref, Inspire HEP, NASA/ADS, and Semantic Scholar.
  • Date Grabber, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Tries to set the date from the Last Modified header from the URL if the date is not set
  • Zotero DOI Manager, by Brenton M. Wiernik.
    • Look up DOI names from CrossRef automatically.
    • Automatically retrieve shortDOI names from http://shortdoi.org and replace them in the Zotero DOI field.
    • Check DOI validity and mark items with invalid DOIs.
    • Clean the DOI field (e.g., to remove http://doi.org/).
  • Zotero Folder Import, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Plugin to import a folder of attachment files from your computer into a Zotero collection hierarchy.
    • Useful for transitioning to Zotero from a manual folder-based organization system.
    • Update metadata from INSPIRE-HEP
  • Zotero Memento, by Leon Tran.
    • Automatically retrieves author ORCID profiles to see related works.
    • Automatically archives webpages and journals for future viewing.
    • Replaces all links susceptible to link rot with permanent DOI URLs.
    • Exports in a variety of formats (MLA, BibTeX, APA, etc.) to represent archival status.
  • Zotero PMCID Fetcher, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Plugin to fetch PMCID/PMID for items with a DOI.
  • Zotero PubPeer, by the PubPeer Foundation.
    • Plugin to show if references in Zotero have PubPeer comments
    • Similar to Zotero's built-in integration with Retraction Watch
    • Plugin to see which references in a library have received a supporting or disputing citation

Attachment File Management

  • ZotFile, by Joscha Legewie.
    • Zotero plugin to automatically rename, move, and attach PDFs (or other files) to Zotero items.
  • Zotero Storage Scanner, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Scan your Zotero storage folder for missing attachments and possible duplicates
  • OPDS Server, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Download your attachments into your e-reader using OPDS
    • Not yet compatible with Zotero 5.0
  • Zotero OCR, by Philipp Zumstein
    • Perform automatic text recognition (OCR) on PDFs with image layer only
    • Uses Tesseract as OCR engine
  • Zowie, by Michael Hucka
    • Write Zotero select links (zotero://select) into PDFs and other attachment files, making it possible to go from a file opened in an external application to the Zotero item corresponding to that file
  • Open-PDF, by Emiliano Heyns
    • Plugin to open PDF in external reader

Zotero Reports

Interface Tools

  • Auto Index, by Emiliano Heyns
    • A Zotero extension which keeps the full-text index updated. Beta release. If you have ZotFile installed, Auto-index will also kick off auto-extraction of notes.
  • Better Notes, by windingwind
    • Adds a knowledge management workflow and other note editor enhancements to Zotero
  • FireTray, by Francesco Foudil
    • Adds minimize to system tray functionality for Linux and Windows.
  • PDF Translate, by windingwind
    • Provides PDF translation for the built-in PDF reader in Zotero 6
  • PDF Preview, by windingwind
    • Provides a PDF preview tab in the item pane
  • ZoteroPreview, by dcartertod
    • Adds a preview tab with a citation preview for the particular item in Zotero
  • Zotero QuickLook, by Mikko Rönkkö
    • Zotero plugin adding QuickLook functionality to Zotero.
  • Zutilo, by Will Shanks
    • Adds additional editing functions and exposes Zotero functions for keyboard shortcuts

Library Analysis/Visualization

    • Adds citation metadata support, with back and forth communication to WikiData, citation extraction from file attachments, and local citation network visualization.
  • Zotero Voyant Export, by Cora Johnson-Roberson
    • Visualize your Zotero collections using Voyant.
  • ZotNet, by Christy Byrd.
    • Allows you to create network maps of Zotero items using the Related feature.

Website Integration

WordPress

  • Zotpress, by Katie Seaborn.
    • WordPress plugin to show Zotero citations on WordPress (with an optional thumbnail image).
    • WordPress plugin to embed a COinS tag in each blog post, making metadata visible to Zotero (post title, author, date, blog title, categories, and URL).
    • WordPress plugin to embed a COinS tag in each blog post, making metadata visible to Zotero (post title, author, date, blog title, categories, and URL).
  • COinS WordPress Plugin, by Peter Binkley.
    • WordPress plugin to embed a COinS tag to something other than the blog post itself (such as a journal article or book). The COinS entries can be made in the post editor.
  • WordPress unAPI Server, by Mike Giarlo and Peter Binkley.
    • WordPress Plugin to exposes blog metadata via unAPI.

SPIP

  • ZotSpip, by Joseph Larmarange.
    • SPIP plugin to synchronise a Zotero library with SPIP (a content management system). References can be presented in web pages and searched through a dedicated webpage. A complementary plugin (BiblioCheck) allows a research unit to manage corrections to apply to the unit bibliography. (PHP)

Drupal

    • Drupal module that provides one-way syncing from Zotero to Drupal's biblio module.

Omeka

    • Omeka plugin to import items from Zotero into an Omeka repository.

BibBase

Flask (Python)

    • Synchronizes with your Zotero library to provide a user-friendly yet powerful search and browsing interface for an online bibliography. Demo.

General

  • Zot_Bib_Web, by David Reitter.
    • Generates interactive web bibliographies based on one or more collections in a Zotero repository. The content generated is static. The program is meant to be run regularly.
  • Zotsite, by Paul Landes.
    • Exports a local Zotero library to an HTML website.
    • View collections, item metadata, notes, and attachment files in convenient layout.
    • Syncing to the Zotero.org servers is not required.

Word Processor and Writing Integration

Word and LibreOffice

    • Cite items from your Zotero library in Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs.
  • Reference Extractor, by Rintze Zelle.
    • Extract embedded Zotero and Mendeley references from Word .docx files for import into Zotero.
    • Select the items in your Zotero library which have been cited in a Word .docx file.

LaTeX, TeX, and Text Editors

  • Better BibTeX, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Make Zotero useful for LaTeX holdouts
    • Enables integration with various plain-text editors
  • LyZ, by Will Shanks.
    • Zotero plugin for integration with the LyX TeX editor.
  • Zot2Bib, by George MacKerron.
    • Zotero plugin for integration with the BibDesk bibliographic manager for Mac OS X.
  • zotxt, by Erik Hetzner.
  • Brackets Zotero integration, by Wasif Hasan Baig.
    • Cite items from your Zotero library in Adobe Brackets.
    • Relies on the BetterBibTeX plugin.
    • Bring up the Zotero citation picker within VS Code
  • zotero-find for Emacs, by Daniel Nicolai
    • Open attachments from a Zotero database from within Emacs
    • Alfred Workflow (Mac only) to easily integrate Zotero with Pandoc using any markdown editor
    • Relies on BetterBibTeX plugin.

Statistical Software

  • RStudio, by RStudio.
    • RStudio has native integration with Zotero as part of its Visual Markdown editor.
    • Works without the BetterBibTeX plugin, but installing BetterBibTeX can permit more control over item citation keys.
    • Requires RStudio v1.4 or higher. Currently available in the RStudio Preview release.
  • rbbt, by Dewey Dunnington, Brenton M. Wiernik.
    • Integrates R/RStudio with Zotero.
    • Relies on the BetterBibTeX plugin
    • In R, run
      remotes::install_github("paleolimbot/rbbt")
  • citr, by Frederik Aust.
    • Integrates R/RStudio with Zotero.
    • Relies on the BetterBibTeX plugin
    • In R, run
      install.packages("citr")
  • cite2c, by Thomas Kluyver.
    • Integrates Python/Jupyter Notebook with Zotero.

Other Programs

  • Logseq, by Logseq
    • Logseq has native integration with Zotero
    • Works without the Better BibTeX plugin, but installing BBT can permit more control over item citation keys
  • MarkDB-Connect, by daeh
    • Link Zotero items to external Markdown files
  • Mdnotes for Zotero, by Argen O.
    • Export item metadata and notes as Markdown files
  • Notero, by David Vanoni
    • Sync your Zotero items into Notion
  • Obsidian citation plugin, by Jon Gauthier
    • Cite items from your Zotero library in Obsidian
    • Relies on the Better BibTeX plugin
  • ONLYOFFICE plugin, by ONLYOFFICE
    • Create bibliographies in ONLYOFFICE editors from items in your Zotero online library
  • RTF/ODF-Scan for Zotero, by Frank Bennett, Sebastian Karcher
    • Enables active citations in any word processor capable of saving/exporting to .odt (e.g., Scrivener, Google Docs)
    • Step 1: Insert citations in your pord processor of choice
    • Step 2: Export document to LibreOffice
    • Step 3: Convert markers to live Zotero citations
  • Zotexmacs, by Slowphil
    • Cite items from your Zotero library in GNU TeXmacs, a feature-rich WYSIWYG scientific word processor with high-quality typesetting
    • Takes advantage of the Better BibTeX plugin if installed, but also works without it
  • Zettlr, by Hendrik Erz
    • Zettlr has native integration with Zotero
    • Relies on the Better BibTeX plugin
  • zot2indd, by Kai
    • Basic implementation of a Zotero to InDesign export, allowing for LaTeX style citations of Zotero items in Adobe's InDesign

Developer Tools

Zotero Client and Plugins

CSL Citation Styles

    • Zotero comes with a basic editor for installed CSL styles.
    • Shows previews of citations and bibliographies for selected items from your Zotero library.
    • Access from the Tools menu in Zotero.
  • CSL Validator, by Rintze M. Zelle.
    • Validate edited CSL styles to ensure they are valid CSL.
  • Citeproc Test Runner, by Frank Bennett.
    • A powerful and convenient tool for on-the-fly automatic testing and validation of CSL styles with any editor.
    • Requires a few tools on the target system (node.js, mocha, and java), but otherwise installs with a single command.

Desktop and Other Program Integration

  • ZotHero, by Dean Jackson.
    • An Alfred workflow for Mac.
    • Search your library, copy formatted references into any program, and open attachments, all without using a mouse.
    • Compatible with Zotero 5.0 and Alfred 3.
    • A plugin for the Calibre ebook manager.
    • Import Zotero file attachments with metadata into Calibre.
    • Export Calibre files and metadata to Zotero.
  • Qnotero, by Sebastiaan Mathôt.
    • Access your Zotero library from your desktop.
    • Not yet compatible with Zotero 5.0
  • TheBrain export, by Emiliano Heyns.
    • Not technically a plugin (it's a translator) but will export your Zotero items in a format that TheBrain can import.
    • Allows customizable automatic creation of Todoist tasks for library items. Can be triggered from the context menu or automatically on item import.

Unmaintained

Several Zotero plugins are known to have been abandoned and are incompatible with current versions of Zotero, had their features incorporated into Zotero or other tools natively, or otherwise be unsuitable for general use.

These unmaintained plugins are listed here.