About Zotero
Zotero is a browser tool that collects, manages, and cites research sources. It's easy to use, lives in your web browser where you do your work, and best of all it's free. Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Word or OpenOffice.
Zotero Quick Start Guide
See also this great guide published by the Zotero developers themselves. Also available as a PDF.
Installing Zotero
To use Zotero, you'll need to install two things:
- The Zotero application itself
- A connector to allow your browser to save citations to Zotero
Both of these are available from the Zotero download page.
Adding References: Books and Articles
Zotero provides the ability to save references from most library catalogs (including OneSearch) and databases, and even web pages, with one click. (Zotero publishes a list of compatible sites, though many sites not on this list also work.) If Zotero detects that you're looking at a book or article on a catalog, database, or a site like Amazon.com, or the New York Times, you'll see a book or page icon appear in the address bar of your browser. Just click the icon and Zotero will automatically save the citation.
If you're on a page of search results with many items, you'll see a folder icon instead. Click this to get a list of all the items on the page, and check off the ones you want to save.
Adding References: Other Web Sites
Web Sites
With Zotero, you can create an item from any webpage by clicking the save button in the browser toolbar. If the page isn't recognized by an official translator, you'll see a gray page icon:
If “Automatically take snapshots when creating items from web pages” is enabled in the General tab of the Zotero preferences, a copy (or snapshot) of the webpage will be saved to your computer and added as a child item. To view the saved copy, double-click the snapshot.
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You can also save a web page citation by right-clicking (or Command-clicking on a Mac) anywhere on the web page and you will find a Zotero item in the resulting menu. See below:
In Chrome: 
In Firefox: 
Creating Your Bibliography: Straight From Zotero
It's easy to create a bibliography from your Zotero library.
Select the references or collections you want to include. Hold the control key and click to select multiple items. Right-click one of the selected items and choose Create Bibliography. Choose the bibliographic style you want, and select the output format: Save as RTF or HTML, copy to clipboard or print. (The RTF file format is compatible with all word processors.)
Or you can just drag and drop references from Zotero into your document! They'll turn into fully formatted citations. This works with any word processor including Google Docs.
Creating Your Bibliography: While You Write
Zotero offers word processing plugins for Word and OpenOffice. The plugin adds a Zotero toolbar to your word processor that allows you to add citations to your document while you write.
To add a citation, click the first button ("Add/Edit Citation") on the toolbar. Search for the reference you want to cite and press Enter. Zotero will add the citation at your cursor.
At the end of your paper, click the "Insert Bibliography" button. Your bibliography will appear, and new citations will be added automatically. Change bibliographic styles with the "Document Preferences" button.
The toolbar looks different on different operating systems and versions of Word. Mousing over the toolbar will pop up each button's function if they're not clearly labeled.
NOTE: Zotero does not work with the online version of Microsoft Word, just the program, which Baylor students can download for free at http://portal.office.com when they log in with their Baylor credentials.
For More Zotero Help
For additional information, features, and tutorials on using Zotero, visit the main Zotero guide here: https://libguides.baylor.edu/zotero.
