THL Citation Management

Zotero is automatically added to your Google Docs when you add the Zotero browser extension for either Chrome or Firefox (not Safari).

The Zotero Google Docs integration works very similarly to the Microsoft Word add-in.

First steps

• Open your Zotero desktop program and keep it open while you’re working.
• On your Google Doc’s Zotero tab, open Document Preferences and set your preferred citation style.

Add a citation

• Place your cursor where you want the in-text citation or footnote, and then choose Add/Edit Citation from the Zotero menu.

• Start typing the title or author of your source into the red Zotero bar.

• When the source you’re looking for appears, click on it or hit “Enter” if you see it already highlighted in blue. Then the red Zotero bar will look like:

• You can start typing the name of another source, if you need a second citation in the same place. Hit enter when you have cited all you need for that space. Your in-text citation(s) or footnote(s) should now appear.

Edit a citation

• To make changes to a citation you’ve already placed, simply click anywhere over that citation. You’ll see a blue link to Edit with Zotero appear.

• When you click Edit with Zotero, the red Zotero bar will appear with the citation visible (as in the previous section). Click on the citation you want to edit in the Zotero bar. From here, you can add a page number or figure number to your citation, and/or check the box to suppress the author’s name.

• Hit Enter when you’re finished with your changes.

Delete a citation

• To delete a citation you’ve added with Zotero, simply select the text and use the Backspace key on your keyboard. 

Add a bibliography

• When you’ve added your in-text citations, click on a space where you want the bibliography, and from the Zotero menu on your Google Doc, choose Add/Edit Bibliography. Zotero will pull the citation information from all the in-text citations you’ve included already and build a bibliography.

Edit a citation in your bibliography

• Click Add/Edit Bibliography again from the Zotero menu on your Google Doc.
• An Edit Bibliography window will appear, where you can add or remove sources from your bibliography, and type any changes by hand to each individual citation.

Before downloading your document from Google Docs when you’re finished, you must Unlink Citations in order for your readers to read the citations as intended.

If you don’t do this step, they just appear as links to the Zotero website.

Troubleshooting

If nothing happens when you click on anything in the Google Doc Zotero menu, hover your mouse over the Zotero icon on your taskbar at the bottom of your screen on a PC, or check your open programs on a Mac. Sometimes the prompt doesn’t pop up on its own. Click on the prompt to bring it up.