Feature: get BibTex-key from entry

alexlex · January 23, 2016

I exclusively work with BibTeX exports from Zotero. One thing I find hinders my productivity is that I have to manually write down BibTeX keys when referencing a paper. While they are predictable, and I don't have to look at the generated BibTeX file, it would be much nicer if I can just copy the key from the entry right in Zotero.

I'd envision this as a feature on the context menu of an entry, "Copy BibTeX key to clipboard" or something similar.

ngehlenborg · January 23, 2016

I agree, a feature like the CMD-K shortcut in Mendeley to copy the bibtex enclosed in a "\cite{...}" would be great!

adamsmith · January 24, 2016

The add-on https://zotplus.github.io/zotero-better-bibtex/
allows that (both of your suggestions: it displays and enables a shortcut for copying) and much more.

alexlex · January 24, 2016

Cool, didn't know that, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

pengyun04 · January 24, 2016

Hi, adamsmith

Could you tell me how to use zotero-better-bibtex?

I use windows and VIM. How to copy the citation key to the clipboard? I can see the citation key after installing the better-bibtex plugin. But I press ctrl-c, it does not copy to clipboard.

adamsmith · January 24, 2016

see https://zotplus.github.io/zotero-better-bibtex/citation-keys.html#drag-and-drophotkey-citations

This feature requires a one-time setup: go to zotero preferences, tab Export, under Default Output Format, select “LaTeX Citation”. If you want Markdown citations, choose “Pandoc Citations”.

noksagt · January 24, 2016

@pengyun04: You should also checkout the excellent LaTeX Suite for Vim that can auto-complete \cite commands

pengyun04 · January 24, 2016

Thank you very much, adamsmith, you give me a good lesson. And I have known how to use it.

@noksagt, I am using vimtex (https://github.com/lervag/vimtex). It can also auto-complete the commands, and is more smaller, and need less config setting.