Some things I used to do in EndNote that I wish I could do in Zotero

I have had enough of EndNote and am switching to Zotero but there are a couple things I could do in EndNote that I really miss.

One is being able to quickly copy and paste a citation from the EndNote application into MS Word. The equivalent function in Zotero would be to copy (command-C on my Mac) and then paste the citation into my Word document. Is there any way to do that in Zotero?

The other is being able to sort my window by Creator last name only and have it not include first name, initials, periods, etc. I would then do a secondary sort by year, so I could see all of an author's publications in chronological order and not sorted by their first name, initials, etc. Is it possible to do that in Zotero?

Bill
  • 1. Is possible see https://www.zotero.org/support/creating_bibliographies#quick_copy

    2. I don't think that's possible, no. FWIW, we strongly recommend keeping author first names the same across references. Authors with different first names (e.g. initials vs. full first name etc.) are treated as different authors by Zotero, so you'd get weird behavior in citations and reference lists as well.
  • One is being able to quickly copy and paste a citation from the EndNote application into MS Word. The equivalent function in Zotero would be to copy (command-C on my Mac) and then paste the citation into my Word document. Is there any way to do that in Zotero?
    You can use Quick Copy to copy a citation or bibliography entry anywhere with a keystroke or by dragging, but if you're using Word, you should just use the Word plugin to insert active citations rather than copying flat text.
    The other is being able to sort my window by Creator last name only and have it not include first name, initials, periods, etc. I would then do a secondary sort by year, so I could see all of an author's publications in chronological order and not sorted by their first name, initials, etc.
    You can do a secondary sort in Zotero from the items list column picker, but by default that it will use the first name. If you really want you can set extensions.zotero.sortCreatorAsString to true in the Config Editor from the Advanced pane of the preferences, which will sort by the visible Creator field, including "et al" but not including first names.
  • Thanks for your answers but these do not do what I want, which is to insert a citation into my Word document, i.e., do the same thing as selecting "Add/Edit Citation" from the Word ribbon, choosing a citation, and having it inserted into the Word document at the point of the cursor. This would be much quicker than having to choose "Add/Edit Citation" from the Word ribbon, find the proper item in Zotero, and then have it inserted into the Word document. That takes many more mouse clicks than being able to highlight the item(s) in EndNote, copy, and then paste into the Word document.

    I also would like to sort my Zotero window by last name only of the author, which makes it easier to get a chronological list of the authors publications in the window.
  • The assumption is that you're already writing in your document, not browsing through Zotero, so it doesn't make sense to switch back to Zotero first every time you want to cite — you just type the thing you're trying to cite. If you prefer to browse, you can use the classic citation dialog, either by clicking on the "Z" in the citation dialog or making that the default from the Cite pane of the preferences (though we don't recommend that). A future version of the citation dialog will integrate collection browsing into the same window.

    Note, also, that you can assign a keyboard shortcut for Add/Edit Citation or the other actions. There's no reason this needs to be slow. Press Ctrl-C (or whatever you set as the shortcut in Word), type "smith" or "smith 2020", and press "Return". That's it. You can even add page numbers via that bar at the same time without using the mouse.

    The ability to insert the currently selected item in Zotero via a button in the plugin toolbar is something we've discussed and will probably happen at some point.
    I also would like to sort my Zotero window by last name only of the author, which makes it easier to get a chronological list of the authors publications in the window.
    I think this may be a misunderstanding. As adamsmith says, first names and initials should be stored the same in your database for citations and bibliographies to work, so it should already sort the same authors together.

    As I explained above, if you really want to ignore last names, you can configure it to sort by the visible creator string, which doesn't include first names, but you'd just be potentially mixing authors with different names.
  • I also would like to sort my Zotero window by last name only of the author, which makes it easier to get a chronological list of the authors publications in the window.
    You might be able to achieve this by creating a citation key column with the Better BibTeX add-on. Alternatively, you could also create a saved search.
  • "The ability to insert the currently selected item in Zotero via a button in the plugin toolbar is something we've discussed and will probably happen at some point."

    I'm coming from EndNote and I am very used to using the application to browse, where I can see a preview of the correct reference in the right pane and then pressing ctrl+2 to add the highlighted reference to my word document.

    I can see why you would assume that I'd want to stay in word, but I'm visual and can't always remember the name of the author or file so I use my experience of my whole library to find what I'm looking for.

    So, +1 to add an option to "insert currently selected item in Zotero" - and how can I know when it's been added? Thanks!
  • In Endnote, I can see the references already added to a Word document as a group in the left pane. I'd love to be able to see that using Zotero with Word.

    Having a group created from inserted references helps me understand (1) the variety of references I've used in a paper, (2) serves as a quick access to the references and specifically their PDFs that I might have already used and need to refer back to for more info.
  • document collections are planned. No ETA. You can use https://rintze.zelle.me/ref-extractor/ (using the "Select in Zotero" option) to create them manually.
  • I agree @lexikeeton that it is easier to 'see' the library - for that reason I still use the Classic Add Citation Dialog (which you can set as the default using Preferences under Cite/Word Processors tab). I also highly recommend the Reference Extractor mentioned by @adamsmith for the second functionality you mention (checking PDFs etc).
  • Thanks @joycekwc and @adamsmith - Reference extractor seems great!
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