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Zotero is one of those pieces of open source software that has really improved my life. I first discovered it as a teenager and it revolutionised writing papers

Zotero is one of those pieces of open source software that has really improved my life. I first discovered it as a teenager and it revolutionised writing papers and managing sources. Sadly I don’t find myself using it that much in my job. I always got a kick out of introducing it to my friends in the humanities and blowing their minds. I have no idea how anyone writes papers without zotero or another similar tool. Keep up the good work.

Forgeties79 5y ago
Honestly I haven’t thought about it since undergrad (history major), I didn’t realize it was still kicking. I might have to fire it back up!
- asdff 5y ago
  You can even use it as a general knowledge repository since you can save anything on zotero pretty much, not just journal articles.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    Mostly just PDFs? Or are there good ways to save non-PDF content?
    - jarvist 5y ago
      The web plugin actually falls back to 'web page with snapshot' if it can't detect a journal paper, which in many ways is better than trying to drag around big PDF binaries.
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        Thanks! I've used zotero only minimally, mostly to support users of my software who use zotero, rather than using it myself for my own purposes. Is the "web plugin" something built into zotero, or an extra plugin to install? Calling it "plugin" makes it sound like something extra to install, but not finding it easily googling. Help me out?
        lhoff 5y ago
        I think OP talks about the Zotero Connector Browser Plugin. So its not a plugin for zotero but your browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge are supported) The plugin ads a button to the Browser where you can add the currently viewed page to your database. It even tries to detect references to papers or other content and choose the matching entry type. Eg on Google Scholar you can choose which search result you want to add. It its a PDF the file gets saved to your zotero database. All in all very handy.
        copperx 5y ago
        Does it also save the JavaScript and images, so that the page can be "archived" locally?
    - asdff 5y ago
      You can link to any type of file and it will open in the default program for that filetype when you double click
  - fipar 5y ago
    That is exactly how I use it and it works great for that. Among other things, I love that I can subscribe to RSS feeds and then save individual items I want to be able to reference later on. Before that I tried several things, local bookmarks, bookmark services (actually just delicious), and an org file for references, but Zotero is the most seamless system for knowledge repository for my use case.
  - copperx 5y ago
    If it can save web pages, it will solve most of my electronic life problems. I doubt it can (otherwise everybody would be using it as a personal knowledge management solution, I assume). I'll take a look anyways.
    - asdff 5y ago
      It can!
jjoonathan 5y ago
Agreed. What really blows my mind is how many of my academically inclined friends manage (and cloud sync) a big library of pirated papers using a rival piece of software owned by a major rights holder of said pirated papers. I mean... there's a good chance nothing will come of it, but it just seems like tempting fate. Zotero isn't just good enough, it's so good that the choice is completely trivial IMO! Thanks, Zotero :)
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  I've converted all my colleagues to Zotero, even though the University has contracted subscriptions to EndNote et al. Zotero is just better. I wish that the UC System would contract with Zotero for their mutual benefit.
  - jessriedel 5y ago
    There's no sales team at Zotero to interface with the UC behemoth...
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    I had to use a trial version of Endnote 9 because a collaborator was using it. It was slow. Adding paper by DOI would freeze the interface for ten or more seconds on a database of less than 100 papers. Meanwhile adding a paper by DOI to my Zotero DB (curently 2000+ papers) is a snap.
  - c0ax9 5y ago
    It really is the superior product/project. I switched to Zotero from Mendeley this year. The thing that was keeping me back before was the lack of internal PDF reader and annotator. I'm not sure when that came into Zotero, but now it is... /chefkiss
- wlkr 5y ago
  There is a very nice (so I'm told...) plugin for Zotero to automatically fetch papers from Sci-Hub based on DOI [0]. [0] https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub

Forgeties79 5y ago

Honestly I haven’t thought about it since undergrad (history major), I didn’t realize it was still kicking. I might have to fire it back up!

asdff 5y ago
You can even use it as a general knowledge repository since you can save anything on zotero pretty much, not just journal articles.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  Mostly just PDFs? Or are there good ways to save non-PDF content?
  - jarvist 5y ago
    The web plugin actually falls back to 'web page with snapshot' if it can't detect a journal paper, which in many ways is better than trying to drag around big PDF binaries.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      Thanks! I've used zotero only minimally, mostly to support users of my software who use zotero, rather than using it myself for my own purposes. Is the "web plugin" something built into zotero, or an extra plugin to install? Calling it "plugin" makes it sound like something extra to install, but not finding it easily googling. Help me out?
      - lhoff 5y ago
        I think OP talks about the Zotero Connector Browser Plugin. So its not a plugin for zotero but your browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge are supported) The plugin ads a button to the Browser where you can add the currently viewed page to your database. It even tries to detect references to papers or other content and choose the matching entry type. Eg on Google Scholar you can choose which search result you want to add. It its a PDF the file gets saved to your zotero database. All in all very handy.
        copperx 5y ago
        Does it also save the JavaScript and images, so that the page can be "archived" locally?
  - asdff 5y ago
    You can link to any type of file and it will open in the default program for that filetype when you double click
- fipar 5y ago
  That is exactly how I use it and it works great for that. Among other things, I love that I can subscribe to RSS feeds and then save individual items I want to be able to reference later on. Before that I tried several things, local bookmarks, bookmark services (actually just delicious), and an org file for references, but Zotero is the most seamless system for knowledge repository for my use case.
- copperx 5y ago
  If it can save web pages, it will solve most of my electronic life problems. I doubt it can (otherwise everybody would be using it as a personal knowledge management solution, I assume). I'll take a look anyways.
  - asdff 5y ago
    It can!

jjoonathan 5y ago

Agreed. What really blows my mind is how many of my academically inclined friends manage (and cloud sync) a big library of pirated papers using a rival piece of software owned by a major rights holder of said pirated papers. I mean... there's a good chance nothing will come of it, but it just seems like tempting fate. Zotero isn't just good enough, it's so good that the choice is completely trivial IMO! Thanks, Zotero :)

SubiculumCode 5y ago
I've converted all my colleagues to Zotero, even though the University has contracted subscriptions to EndNote et al. Zotero is just better. I wish that the UC System would contract with Zotero for their mutual benefit.
- jessriedel 5y ago
  There's no sales team at Zotero to interface with the UC behemoth...
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  I had to use a trial version of Endnote 9 because a collaborator was using it. It was slow. Adding paper by DOI would freeze the interface for ten or more seconds on a database of less than 100 papers. Meanwhile adding a paper by DOI to my Zotero DB (curently 2000+ papers) is a snap.
- c0ax9 5y ago
  It really is the superior product/project. I switched to Zotero from Mendeley this year. The thing that was keeping me back before was the lack of internal PDF reader and annotator. I'm not sure when that came into Zotero, but now it is... /chefkiss
wlkr 5y ago
There is a very nice (so I'm told...) plugin for Zotero to automatically fetch papers from Sci-Hub based on DOI [0]. [0] https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub