How can I communicate Zotero content to nonZoterouser?

franz47 · February 6, 2016

I am having my Zotero data in a directory on my Windows PC. This directory is automatically synchronized with a webdav-server at a cloud provider. When using another one of my PCs elsewhere this content is automatically synchronized and I can use Zotero on my other PCs with the same content.

I want to communicate one of my Zotero collections including subcollections with a friend, who is not a Zotero-User. How can I best do so? I could send him a link to the data collection of Zotero I want to communicate, but he would not be able to use the content of subdirectories reasonably.

So how can I communicate the collections so that he can see the actual names etc of subcollections?

noksagt · February 6, 2016

In my opinion, the best way to collaborate is using Zotero's group functionality. It is free to create an account & he can browse the group library online without installing anything or install Zotero to get the full functionality. File syncing via WebDAV is not possible with groups, though.

Alternatively, you can do as you are doing now and publish your entire library online and send him a link to browse it online:
https://www.zotero.org/settings/privacy

The worse options are:

share your account details with him so he can log on as you (I'd personally never do this, but we hear from people who collaborate with, e.g. their research assistants this way)
Periodically, create manual exports of relevant content for him

Re. (2): You can export to e.g. Endnote XML, BibTeX, or RIS (depending on what reference manager he uses) with file attachments and/or you can generate a Report for him. These likely lack collection information, but you should be able to select all references in a subcollection & give them a common tag to reflect what subcollection they are part of & this should be exported in most formats.