Exporting a Zotero library

AM-Z

Hi. When right-clickling on my main Library, I am seeing an option to "Export Library."
If I use the Zotero RDF format to export and save the file on my laptop, can I later use this to build my entire library with the labels?
While I have Zotero backed up through a manual copy-paste of its storage and other folders, I also want to know about the option above.
Will the above option give me a simple list of all my bibliographic entries and the labels I've attached to them?
Thanks!

dstillman

Can you explain what you're trying to do? While Zotero RDF includes tags, an export isn't intended as a backup. You should have a proper backup of your data directory.

AM-Z

I just saw that option so I thought it may be one way of ensuring that all my saved info is saved somewhere outside Zotero as a .docx or PDF file.
In case data is lost etc., it'll still be nice to just have a simple text file showing all my bibliographic entries along with their tags and Notes info.

adamsmith

It doesn't do any harm to use, of course, but it's the wrong way to think about a back-up: Zotero RDF is a representation of Zotero data based on XML/RDF (i.e. a plain text-based general format) and will restore almost all of the information when re-imported, yes, but e.g. it will break connection to existing Word/LO docs and there's some minimal data loss. It's great if you want to pass on some of your library to another Zotero user, e.g.
A regular database back-up is also a representation of Zotero data in an general open format (sqlite). Restoring from a back-up will completely restore your database, exactly as it was before, including all connections both to Zotero sync and to existing Word/LO documents, i.e. it's a better back-up in every aspect.