Can Zotero Quick-copy Markdown formatted Citations?

edited March 3, 2021
Hi,

I know there are many tools that are available to integrate Zotero/Juris-m with markdown converters (pandoc etc.), but they all seem to rely on citekeys and some more complex integration strategy, which I have, so far, been unsuccessful in implementing.

I am wondering if there is a way to simply copy a markdown formatted bibliographic entry, i.e. not html formatted, but with the italicization in markdown format directly from

For example, I would like to choose one of the CSL Styles like "Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (author-date)", quick-copy an item from Zotero and have it produce something like:



Bodiford, William M. 2008. _Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan_. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.


(note the underlines `_` to indicate italics; as I'm sure you know asterisks `*` also be used)

Rather than:


<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left: 2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Bodiford, William M. 2008. <i>Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan</i>. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&amp;rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&amp;rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-0-8248-3303-9%20978-0-8248-1482-3&amp;rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&amp;rft.genre=book&amp;rft.btitle=S%C5%8Dt%C5%8D%20Zen%20in%20medieval%20Japan&amp;rft.place=Honolulu&amp;rft.publisher=University%20of%20Hawaii%20Press&amp;rft.aufirst=William%20M.&amp;rft.aulast=Bodiford&amp;rft.au=William%20M.%20Bodiford&amp;rft.date=2008&amp;rft.tpages=xxi%2C%20343&amp;rft.isbn=978-0-8248-3303-9%20978-0-8248-1482-3&amp;rft.language=English"></span>
</div>


I dunno if that makes sense, but in the text editor there is a bunch of html gobbledegook which, for my purposes, is unnecessary (though I totally understand why you might want that for other projects).

Thank you,
Tom
  • No -- there was a recent discussion on this that you can probably find where the requester had similar concerns to you. I don't know if devs would reconsider if this becomes a more common concern, but generally there's going to be reluctance to add support for a format that technically (via HTML) is already supported and which in its pure form isn't able to accommodate a number of the things that CSL does (indenting, line spacing, small caps)
  • Also, most markdown editors will automatically convert from HTML and RTF, or there will be a function for that in the Edit menu. I know Ulysses (via Edit menu) and Bear automatically convert Zotero quick copy to their versions of Markdown.
  • @tomnewhall: I don't want to get into it again, but it's this thread where I explain why this doesn't really make sense for Zotero to do. (Short version: it's not gobbledygook in any general sense, and HTML is valid Markdown.)
  • Ok thanks all for your quick responses. I saw that thread earlier but didn't quite see what the result of the debate was. It would be nice if there were an add-on or something that did this, or something like this, but I don't really have the programming chops to make it myself.
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