Backup copies and protect work in progress

stephanyo

Hi all!

I am a new user of Zotero and, before starting to launch with this program, I would like to know if any of you already had problems with word, when using Zotero. My fear is to lose the work in progress in case there is a conflict between the two programs.

Secondly, I am also somewhat concerned about losing the bibliographic information accumulated in Zotero. Is it possible to make some backup, or export the data so that they can be read in another program?

Thank you!

bwiernik

1) Zotero and Word generally work very well together. Zotero can slow down if you have a very large number of citations in a document (more than a few hundred), but this won't cause any instability or lost work. You can always disconnect Zotero from your document by clicking the "Unlink citations" button in the Zotero tab in Word.

2) You can use Zotero Sync to sync your library with Zotero.org to keep a copy of your library in the cloud in case your computer crashes. You should also keep a backup of you Zotero data folder as part of your general backup process for your computer. The linked page describes how to restore your library from a backup if necessary.

Zotero can export to a wide variety of standard bibliographic data formats that can be read by other programs, such as RIS, BibTeX, Zotero RDF, and CSL-JSON. Of these formats, Zotero RDF will has the least information loss. Select the items you want to export, right-click, and choose "Export items". Some other programs can also directly import from a Zotero database without need for export. Note that exporting and importing is not recommended as a way to backup your library for use in Zotero itself—Zotero will treat re-imported items as new items, potentially creating duplicates and breaking links with existing Word documents. Instead, follow the directions above to make backups for use in Zotero.

stephanyo

Many thanks for you answer. You convinced me!