Copy+paste of BibTex keys

vicius

Hi, I think it would be very useful to be able to select a group of Zotero entries and then just copy to clipboard a comma-separated list of the corresponding BibTex keys. This would really facilitate preparing Latex documents.
Is anything like this already implemented?
Thanks!

jpjacobs

This seems already possible, using ctrl-shif-C.

I think the problem at hand is that there is a discrepancy between the export format list in the settings and the one in the dialog for right-click 'Create bibliography for selected items'. It would be more consistent to list non-formatted export options too, like BibTeX (make it the same as in the export settings).

Kind regards,
Jan-Pieter

dstillman

jpjacobs: There are two separate context-menu actions for bibliography formats and export formats. If you want the export formats via right-click, you just need to choose "Export Item…" instead of "Create Bibliography from Item…". Quick Copy just lets you choose either from the same list for simplicity, but it doesn't offer all the options that the two dialogs offer.

In any case, vicius, yes, it sounds like Quick Copy is what you want.

dstillman

Well, to clarify, Quick Copy will copy entire BibTeX records by default. There's no citation functionality for export formats as there is for bibliography formats.

If you want to copy keys only, you'll need an additional solution. See this thread for details — you can either install a custom translator or use a Zotero plugin (not written or supported by us) that can do this for you.

jpjacobs

Thank you for the clarifications!

Well, the "Export item(s)" obliges the user to save the thing to a file, then go digg up that file, while in most cases, you just want to paste it in your editor... well, at least I do :)
"Create Bibliography from items" on the other hand, allows for selecting the clipboard too.
Anyhow, it is not my call to make, but having the two feels superfluous; they might well be merged, simplifying the menu, without loosing any functionality.

Just my 2 cents. Now that I know, the quick copy works just fine :).

dstillman

(It would simplify the menu, but it would make the dialog much more complicated. Bibliographies and exports have totally different options — you can't export files to the clipboard, very few people need to print an export format, you can't generate citations for export formats, etc. The simplified case of getting an export format into your editor is precisely what Quick Copy is for.)

dstillman

(Which isn't to say that there couldn't be two output options in the "Export Items…" dialog: "Save as File" and "Copy to Clipboard". But unlike in the bib dialog, those would have to be in a section above the existing options, because the available options would depend on the output mode. Copying this way would be less efficient than using Quick Copy, but it'd make sense to add if we thought people often needed to export to the clipboard in a format other than the one selected in the Quick Copy settings. Anyway, this is getting off-topic for this thread, so this can be discussed elsewhere, or if someone creates a patch they can submit a pull request.)

vicius

Dan, thanks for the infos!
I'll go through the suggested thread.

emilianoeheyns

https://github.com/ZotPlus/zotero-better-bibtex does this.