Skip to Main Content

Zotero

Practical instructions for installing and using Zotero citation manager.

What is Zotero?

Zotero logo

What is Zotero? Zotero is a free reference manager that allows you to gather and organize your referencesas well as automatically create in-text citations and bibliographies in the citation style of your choice.

Zotero works on all three major operating systems: PC, Mac, and Linux. It works best with Chrome and Firefox, but you can download and install plug-ins for Safari and Edge as well.

Zotero Quick Start Guide - from the folks at Zotero

Getting started

To get started with Zotero, you'll need to download a few different items:

  • Zotero Desktop: this is your main library where you'll be able to collect and organize your articles and other materials
  • Zotero Connector: a browser extension that will let you pull citations directly from the web into Zotero
  • Zotero Word Processor Integration: a plug-in that will help you cite Zotero items and generate bibliographies in Microsoft Word and/or OpenOffice (This should install automatically when you install the desktop app.)

Want a hand?

The University of Ottawa maintains an excellent series of video tutorials (with transcripts) to help with every stage of downloading and learning to use Zotero. Check them out!