Overleaf integration results in missing Greek letters and mathematical notations

r3hutchi

I've linked my accounts and I'm using a synched .bib file for citing in Overleaf. When I look at the compiled References some symbols (like alpha and beta) don't appear or the citation contains coding (for example \eta).

This only happens when I connect my Zotero and Overleaf accounts and use the synched .bib file. There are no problems with the References if I export a .bib from Zotero using BBT and upload that static file.

Does anyone know of any fixes? I’d love to be able to make changes in Zotero and have them show up in Overleaf as I’m writing without having to download and reupload the .bib file and edit the Greek letters/math notations every time I finish a paper.

This is difficult because I'm not a coder and I'm quite new to LaTeX. This solution https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/exporting/advanced/ seems to be wiped away by the Zotero/Overleaf API.

I can’t try these options https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/exporting/auto/ because I use a work computer (I can’t download DropBox or Google Drive which means I can’t export directly into an cloud shared folder). I can’t get the downloadable link from OneDrive to work – it seems to not work with .bib files.

Hopefully I’m missing something obvious and someone will be willing to walk a newbie through it!

adamsmith

I'm guessing this is because Zotero exports utf-8 by default, which means no escaping for most characters. What are you seeing in the synced .bib file?

If that's indeed the issue, you should be able to fix this by using \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} in the document header to enable that. Where possible, we've also had people have good success using BibLaTeX instead of BibTeX on Overleaf.

r3hutchi

Thank you for the suggestions!
I added \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} to the overleaf .tex file and I selected the BibLaTeX format when linking the file in Overleaf, but I didn't see any improvement. Were those the right places to add/select those?

This is the title field of one of my citations in Zotero:
A collocation method for time-fractional diffusion equation on a metric star graph with η edges

And it shows up just like that in the .bib in Overleaf:
@article{faheem2023collocation,
title = {A collocation method for time-fractional diffusion equation on a metric star graph with η edges},
journaltitle = {Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences},
author = {Faheem, Mo and Khan, Arshad},
date = {2023},
note = {Publisher: Wiley Online Library},

But the compiled Reference looks like:
A collocation method for time-fractional diffusion equation on a metric star graph with edges... The eta disappears

cherepanov

I have a similar problem. Is there a solution to this?

adamsmith

Zotero exports bibtex unescaped (i.e. as utf-8) -- using either biblatex or specifying utf8 should fix this -- if it doesn't, that's a LaTeX question and you're probably better of on TeXexchange for that; it's likely related to the template you're using though.

If you're not constrained similarly to r3hutchi, using BBT and relying on something else (like Dropbox) to sync the file online shoudl work nicely, instructions are linked above.