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lguimaraes
I am just starting to use Zotero. I was previously using Endnote and decided to migrate to Zotero after reading about this Firefox extension in the internet.
I just have a couple of questions for which I would much appreciate some help.
When importing references from a given site, Zotero automatically imports also snapshots and other attachments. I would like to know how do I remove them without removing the reference/entry to which they are attached. This is just because they are not useful at all for me and they seem to increase too much the library size on disk, and the backup time.
Endnote allows us to use temporary citations, based on the reference ID number, which connects the citation to the reference in the EndNote library (ie, {McKibben, 1995 #107}), and just format/generate a bibliography list when the manuscript is already fully written. This is usually much faster and straightforward then using the insert menus. Is there any similar possibility in Zotero?
  • ahoward
    Your first problem is probably easiest to fix by changing how you add items to Zotero. First off, make sure that in the General tab of the Preferences window, "Automatically attach associated PDFs and other files when saving items" is unchecked.

    At present, there doesn't seem to be any way of automatically creating a Web Page item from the site you're on without also creating a Snapshot. If you create the Web Page item by clicking the "Create New Item from Current Page" button in the Zotero toolbar (the little blue page with the green plus sign), the snapshot is added as a child item. If you expand the item by clicking the arrow (OSX) or plus sign (Windows) next to it, you will see the snapshot. Right-clicking on it and selecting "Delete selected item from library" will remove it. If you're using 1.5b, it will be sent to the Zotero trash can. If you're worried about items taking up too much space, you may want to clear your Zotero trash can every once in a while. If you're using 1.0.9, it's deleted straight-away.

    If all you want is a link to the site, without the bibliographic data, you can click on the "Save Link to Current Page" button in the Zotero toolbar.

    As for creating one-off citations, Zotero does not have a way of doing this. It's just not all that difficult to create an item and, if all you're storing is metadata, it shouldn't take up much space. Using tags, saved searches and collections should keep your library tidy enough that the extra items won't be too much of a hassle. Furthermore, it will soon be even easier to quickly add items, since the latest development version has the ability to add items by simply entering the ISBN, DOI or PMID number.

    Hope all this helps.
  • lguimaraes
    Thank you very much for your help! Especially for the first tip.
    I still have some problems with the generation of bibliographies as footnotes (which I don't want), the simultaneous insertion of more than one citation at a time, and the styles for bibliography generation, among others. But I think I will manage to deal with them sooner or later...
    This probably happens because I was very fast using the shortcuts and alternative possibilities of endnote, which I can't find in Zotero. For the moment it doesn't seem very flexible to me. But I am probably wrong, due to my lack of experience with it. I just want to use it in a very fast, simple and stupid way to manage the reference lists of my scientific works.
    Thanks a lot!
  • adamsmith
    Zotero has plenty of shortcuts, yes.
    Some of them you can set in the preferences (gear item - preferences)
    There are also shortcuts for the word plugin.
    Mutiple citations and non-footnotes should work easily, if problems persist, come back and ask.
  • dstillman
    At present, there doesn't seem to be any way of automatically creating a Web Page item from the site you're on without also creating a Snapshot. If you create the Web Page item by clicking the "Create New Item from Current Page" button in the Zotero toolbar (the little blue page with the green plus sign), the snapshot is added as a child item.
    If the snapshot preference is off, Create New Item from Current page won't save a child snapshot.
    Endnote allows us to use temporary citations, based on the reference ID number, which connects the citation to the reference in the EndNote library (ie, {McKibben, 1995 #107}), and just format/generate a bibliography list when the manuscript is already fully written
    RTF scanning (save document with temporary codes ("(McKibben, 2006)"), save as RTF, run through Zotero) is coming in the next beta.
  • adamsmith
    RTF scanning (save document with temporary codes ("(McKibben, 2006)"), save as RTF, run through Zotero) is coming in the next beta.
    man, you guys are awesome.
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