download bulk styles

Martin-1234 · August 22, 2015

I need many different styles. I there a way to download all at once? Possibly by category (e.g. all tagged "biology"), but I also don't mind to download just all. Thanks in advance!

zuphilip · August 22, 2015

You can "download" all styles by cloning the git repositorium, i.e.
> git clone https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles.git

Martin-1234 · August 22, 2015

Thanks! That is helpful. But now it seems that all styles used by Zotero must be on the top-level within the styles folder, i.e. Zotero does not "auto-detect" styles organized in subfolders of the styles folder. I can click the "+" and install single styles from subfolders only manually, one at a time (cannot select > 1 style to install)... Do I miss sth?

adamsmith · August 22, 2015

git clone would certainly be the standard approach, but if you really don't want to handle git, there's also a "Download Zip" button at the right of
https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/

adamsmith · August 22, 2015

Maybe you could describe what you're trying to do? e.g. why is it a problem to just place all styles you want at the top level?

Martin-1234 · August 22, 2015

I am trying to keep the styles organized (separate original styles and styles adjusted by myself, possibly keep the structure of "normal"/dependent styles from github, and styles from other sources apart (in my previous experience (before Zotero), styles from the journals themselves were often different from reference manager software (Endnote) styles, sometimes the one or other was better.

I had tried "Download zip" - basically works, just wondered if i can use folders to keep them apart as described above.

Github: To be honest, I am not familiar to that, and was simply afraid it might be a little bit too much and distract me further from my real work. But will have a look if it is helpful. Would using github solve my problem (keep styles organized and avoid installing each one by one)?

adamsmith · August 22, 2015

no, github won't solve your problem, I just figured if you wanted bulk download, you'd want to do further processing/develoment on the styles. That's when git would be more practical.

As for your question. The thing is: if you install styles via + (or any other method), Zotero just copies them to the top level of the styles directory anyway. I'd generally just advice to leave the styles folder alone. There's also the auto-updating that would be a concern, for example.

There are essentially no journals that host their own CSL styles, so that's not really an issue.

If you really need to, you could symlink from within the styles folder to your own organization, but that does seem a lot of trouble for a benefit I'm not really seeing.