Google Docs, Zotero Chrome Extension, and Zotero Web?

ncwalker
Hi there,

I apologize if this is the incorrect way of reaching out. I tried searching the forum without luck. Is there a way to have the Zotero Chrome and Firefox Extensions pull their data from Zotero Web for Google Docs integration instead of the full installed app?

I'm trying to replace my Windows computer with a Chromebook, and would love a fully-cloud-based configuration, which seems would be accomplished with an option in the browser extensions to pull data from Zotero Web instead of the installed version.

Maybe there is a way to do this that I'm missing? I DO have the extension set up to connect to Zotero Web, but that seems to work only for saving references, not for the Google Docs integration.

Thanks so much for this incredible software!
  • dstillman
    edited November 2, 2019
    No, sorry, Google Docs integration currently requires the Zotero desktop app. A version that uses the web library directly might happen at some point, but even with the new beta web library there's still lots of other functionality in the desktop app that you'd be missing out on by not using the desktop app.

    Note that it is possible to run Zotero on Chromebooks — there are some threads on that here.
  • ncwalker
    Gotcha. No worries. I realize it's a big app. Is there an official way to put this in as a future feature request? Would love to see that down the road, even if isn't the full functionality of the installed app. With the extensions already existing, and Zotero Web version already existing, it seems like it would take a few api calls and viola!

    ...I'm not a programmer (can you tell?), I realize it's not that simple, but at least the extensions already exist, so it wouldn't be starting from scratch.

    Thanks again!
  • dstillman
    Is there an official way to put this in as a future feature request?
    Yep, that's what these forums are for.
    With the extensions already existing, and Zotero Web version already existing, it seems like it would take a few api calls and viola!
    Much of the heavy lifting — and the user interface — for word processor integration is on the Zotero app side and shared by the Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs plugins, so unfortunately not quite so simple. But yes, it's possible in theory, and we know there's demand, so it's something we hope to offer down the line.
  • stoicbadger
    Understanding its some time away, I'd like to just toss my vote in with this option. I too use a chromebook and would use zotero a lot more if it could do this. I like the new web library beta! The only thing so far I noticed is that I cannot use it to create a citation so I can copy and paste it into my google doc which is a bummer. I can do the bib, but not the in text or in my case, footnotes. maybe i'm missing something. Anyway, thank you for the great software!
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