Basic Zotero features

dumdiedum
hi guys,

I just started writing my master thesis and a colleague of mine showed me ZOTERO as a citation tool.

As I used CITAVI before, I have some questions to the features of ZOTERO. The desctiptions and the documentation is little useful to me.

So here my Questions if there is a button/feature for it:

I pick PDF Files from Firefox, like that one here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:285:0010:0035:de:PDF
and want to edit the details like author, year ... on the very left colum of the zotero plugin.
How do I do that? Why is the PDF File Saved as a "link"? What do I need to do to make ZOTERO capture the file information of the PDF to not edit it manually?

secondly, how do I can put a text I want to cite into ZOTERO? As I am a student I am used to read documents which I want to cite sentences of. How I do mark a sentence in an PDF or of a website I want to cite? CITAVI got this feature which made it possible to mark sentences and save them as a citation. How is that possible with ZOTERO? I did not found any feature similar.

thirdly, how can I add a folder with many PDF files to my ZOTERO library which I already have? drag an drop does not work.

lastly, what I simply want to do with zotero is:
- sync my library with multiple computers via internet
- pick data from PDF files like ebsco host / Business source premier
- save interesting sentences and search them
- manage my cites in word
- manage folders with documents

Is ZOTERO the right software for me then?

thanx for your help :)
  • mark
    edited June 4, 2012
    Yes, Zotero is probably the right software for you. It can do most of the things you want it to do. Please start by reading the quick start guide. Most of the questions you're asking are answered right there.
  • adamsmith
    I'm not sure I understand 1) - how are you adding the file to Zotero? But if you just add a pdf, you can't add author/title etc. - you first have to attach it to an item with metadata (right-click in the middle column --> Create Parent item from Selected Item)

    2) You can put the text into a note, but Zotero doesn't currently have a function that includes a citation with the text (as, I believe, Citavi does)

    3) You can only add individual files, not whole folders (but you can select (or drag&drop) multiple files at once.

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