Copying from Zotero is SO complicated

loic.bertrand

Hi all,

Most of the time, I want simple functions for copying entries in HTML, RTF or BibTeX format.

Bibdesk for instance has this wonderful "Copy as…" menu, where you can select to copy as:
- BibTeX
- minimal BibTeX (deleting non-standard fields)
- RIS
- RTF (using a standard template)
- PDF (using a standard template)
- LaTeX
- Amsrefs LaTeX
- URL
- and advanced settings using a model to generate: HTML, RTF, RTFD, RSS, Doc

Why does Zotero make our life so complicated here?

L

dstillman

I'm not sure what you think is complicated?

https://www.zotero.org/support/creating_bibliographies

loic.bertrand

In practice, I find it complicated:
1. There is not a single place where these various copy actions can be found.
2. You have to change the export format in the settings to navigate between very basic export options, when they could be in the main Edit menu.
3. The distinction between a basic RTF and a style-tuned RTF is a nice idea of Bibdesk.

dstillman

Something can not be optimized for your personal, idiosyncratic workflow without being "SO complicated" — in fact, there's a good chance it's the opposite. It's pretty odd to claim that Zotero makes things complicated while describing a menu with all sorts of esoteric options that the vast majority of Zotero users would never use.

As explained on the linked page, there are a grand total of two functions here, both extremely simple, for different purposes:

1) If you want to copy a rich-text bibliography entry to the clipboard and have the option of choosing the citation style, you can do that via right-click → "Create Bibliography from Item". You don't have to choose between HTML and RTF. It just copies plain and rich text to the clipboard.

2) If you want to copy in a specific preconfigured citation style or export format, you can do that by pressing a shortcut key or dragging the items to any text field.

Most people aren't copying different export formats to the clipboard all the time. If you are, you can use site-specific Quick Copy settings if you're copying different formats to different websites or use various plugins (Zutilo in Z6, Actions & Tags in Z7) to add additional shortcut keys. If you're using BibTeX for anything other than basic metadata exchange, you should be using the Better BibTeX plugin anyway.

You can also of course just export to a given export format via File → Export or save a bibliography as an HTML or RTF file via "Create Bibliography from Item".

There's a decade-old ticket to make the Quick Copy format configurable from the Edit menu. A "Copy As" submenu would be another option. It's just not something we get much demand for.