I would also like to know how to make the URLs presented in a bibliography 'hot', that is make them hyperlinks that allow the reader to click on the URL to view the source in the browser. Once a bibliography is 'hard-wired', you can manually visit each URL and make them a hyperlink but it would be great if this could be done automatically.

OK, so I guess it's a bit lame to reply to my own message ... but I just want to log the limited further research I've done...

I have established that it is definitely possible to manually add internal hyperlinks linking citations to corresponding entries in the bibliography. Basically just go through the bibliography and insert a bookmark at the start of each one. Then go back to each citation, highlight it, click the hyperlink button, click "Document" (rather than "Internet") if not already active, click the button to the right of the "Target" field, navigate to the relevant bookmark, click "apply", close the target navigation (sub-)window, click "apply" again in the hyperlink window, and close that. Once this is all done, export to PDF and you should find that these internal hyperlinks work as expected in the PDF version.

(Note: I'm not saying there is anything special here about linking citations to bibliography entries - this is just the standard oowriter "internal hyperlink" functionality. I'm just logging it here for the benefit of anybody reading the thread who has not done it before...)

Hyperlinking bibliography entries to external resources (either exposing or suppressing URLs) can presumably also be achieved manually with this sort of approach.

Of course, this is all pretty labour intensive. Also, I have not checked, but I suspect that if, for any reason, one asks the zotero extension to re-generate/update the bibliography, or manipulate/edit individual citations, then this linkage could easily get blown away again. But my conclusion is that, on the face of it, it looks like the desired functionality can, in principle, be automated in a reliable way with modifications only to the zotero openoffice extension (i.e., it should not be necessary to change either zotero itself or dig into the internals of openoffice, including the PDF exporter). I've never attempted to develop or modify an openoffice extension, but a quick peek inside the Zotero.oxt (with unzip) suggests that the functionality is basically all in the Zotero.py - a 1500 line python script (which may not currently have any maintainer?).

I might roll up my sleeves and try to have a go at this sometime in the coming months, but it is not a very high priority and would be a fairly big learning curve for me ... so I would equally be very pleased if anybody already experienced in openoffice python extension development would be interested ;-) ...

Hi zdemery -

Yep, it will be very nice if/when this is all implemented. Unfortunately, the bad news is that I think I was a little over-optimistic in my earlier assessment. I had assumed that when zotero delivers a formatted bibliography to the openoffice extension, there would be unique embedded identifiers associated with each item that could be matched with corresponding identifiers in each citation; and this would be the basis for the extension to automatically hyperlink them together. However, while I can find suitable embedded identifiers associated with the citations, I can't find any corresponding identifiers associated with the items in the bibliography. Without such embedded identifiers, it is quite complex to try to match citations to bibliography items (not least because the relationship would depend critically on the citation and referencing style in use). So, if I am right that zotero is not currently embedding such identifiers in the bibliography it sends to the extension, then I think it would be necessary to modify zotero itself somewhat to add this information; this is, I don't think this issue can currently be addressed just by working on the extension. There again, I have not investigated that deeply, and I may have missed something. Or maybe this functionality will be added to zotero in the future for some other reasons anyway...

Also note that you can already start working with the new CSL processor in the trunk XPI builds of Zotero, just be sure to not use it with vital data.

there is another work-around. you can simply use the openoffice AutoCorrect function. But for make it working you have to copy your bibliography in an new document (no idea, why AutoCorrect doesn't work in the area of the bibliography)

1. Ctrl+C your whole bibliography (at the end of writing)
2. ctrl+shift+v -> formattet text (rtf) -> to import the format
3. adapt your AutoCorrect options -> Format -> AutoCorrect -> AutoCorrect Options -> only url-recognition should be marked (in the [M]-Section)
4. run AutoCorrect
5. copy+paste the bibliography in your original document.

This thread is what I am searching for--Hyperlink Citations in a Bibliography / reference in ms office document or its printed/exported pdf.

I thought I was able to do it with Zotero but it seems that it has not been implemented yet.

But FYI, this feature has been implemented long time ago in Endnote, for example, see this: http://libguides.utoledo.edu/content.php?pid=221467&sid=1877021

So for now, for practical reason, if I want to be able to do this, then I should switch doing the job by using Endnote.

Looking forward to being able to do something important ( to hyperlink citations in ms office and in its printed pdf file) like this in Zotero in the future. Thanks.