what should I do with "better bibtex citation key migration"

larrytalley
Today I open Zotero after not using it for a week or maybe two, or maybe a month, and now I am faced with a dialog box for "better bibtex citation key migration", and I don't know what choices I should make. This seems very consequential because I have external references to Better BibTeX keys in a few thousand documents. I would be unhappy if I break my external references.

I start with the info that "You have 9939 Better BibTeS stored citation keys, of which 0 are pinned".

What happens with all my external referencers if I "Migrate all Better BibTeX citation keys"?

Perhaps it should be obvious what happens if I "Discard all Better BibTeX keys", I presume that would break all my external references.

In the second part of the dialog box is the section titled "When a Better BibTeX stored citation key exists for an item that currently has a citation key in Zotero:"

I assume that this is something about how the migration process (why do I need a migration process?) is going to handle situations when the migration process wants to create a new migrated citation key that already exists in the old unmigrated keys. If this assumption is correct which choice leads to less anguish on my part? Should I "Overwrite existing key in the library" which sounds like it breaks any external reference, or should I "Delete Better BibTeX citation key" which also sounds like it breaks any external reference. Is there a way out that doesn't lead to anguish?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u11857206/wsjieknd4v3wbrfybcjg.png

I am very grateful for the Zotero tool. I use a Zotero plugin in Chrome to capture citations from web pages, many of which are newspaper citatioons from Chronicaling America, or HathiTrush, etc. I capture a citation with Zotero, export via Better BibTeX, and write in Zettlr (with a reference to the Better BibTeX CSL JSON file.)

Currently my research process is on hold because I don't know how to handle the citation migration, I don't want to break my references.
  • adamsmith
    As I wrote in your other response, this is triggered by the existence of Citation Key fields in Zotero proper, which means BBT can remove its custom field, but is then asking you what to do with the existing BBT keys.
    In most situations, and specifically if you have been relying on BBT keys before and have active references using BBT keys, you should run migration with the first option for both settings.

    1. Will migrate the BBT keys into the new Citation Key field (instead of discarding them)

    2. Determines what happens if, for some reason, there is something in the Citation Key field you're migrating into already; this is going to be quite rare and might not be true for any items in your library. Since you want to use the old BBT keys, the answer is that you want to overwrite anything in that field.
  • samanthaculp
    Hi, I also just upgraded Zotero and so saw this dialogue box for the first time and wasn't sure what to do next. Maybe a dumb question: when you say "specifically if you have been relying on BBT keys before and have active references using BBT keys"- HOW DO I KNOW if that's the case? I don't recall offhand how does Bibtex work and if I have been using it in my workflow. Similar to OP, I just don't want to break anything in my massive (7000-item plus) Zotero archive. Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    If you've been using the export formats explicitly labelled as "Better", you've been using BBT Citekeys.
    If you've been using Zotero's stock BibTeX or BibLaTeX export, you've only been using BBT generated citekeys if you've 'pinned' them.
  • samanthaculp
    Hi, thanks for the reply and sorry to be a total moron (I'm a writer and not literate in the backend of Zotero beyond "install a plugin", "add a document manually or by Chrome plugin", "add tags", "Generate Bibliography for item", etc), but how would I tell if I'm using "the export formulas explicitly labelled as 'Better'"? I have the Better BibTex plugin since I started using Zotero. When I look at Zotero Settings, then click the Better BibTex in the left-hand column, it shows me the following as I scroll down (see screenshots). Can anyone help me ascertain if I'm using the export formats explicitly labelled as "better"? Thanks in advance!
    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1713377/jxtdxtle8inhoox2nus8.jpg
    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1713377/3wet17q03n94bgdexik3.jpg
  • adamsmith
    How are you actually exporting, though? These are just the BBT settings (which all look fine) -- they determine what happens when you use the "Better" export formats, but you're always technically able to use both generic Zotero and BBT.
    What's your workflow? Where and how are you using BibTeX?
  • samanthaculp
    As a writer researching a book, I use Zotero for storing, organizing, tagging, annotating my sources. Most are articles (journal articles but also from magazines / newspapers) that I pull from online via Chrome browser plugin. Some are PDFs or Word Docs or audio recordings that I manually upload to Zotero and create the metadata for. Then I use Zotero to tag, create notes and highlights, organize into folders, and read / understand my sources. Then when I am actually quoting a source in a chapter and need to cite it, I navigate to the source and right-click on it to "Create Bibliography from item" and copy-paste that text (usually MLA citation) into my chapter. That's pretty much my workflow. I'm not sure how or if Better BibTex fits into this, but I did download the plugin long ago, so if it has been actively involved with how my library organizes itself or parses sources, i'm anxious to "break" that somehow if I do the citation key migration in the dialogue box. What are your thoughts? Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    You're not using the plugin at all in anything you describe.
    The only reason you would use BBT would be to maintain reference in a word processor other than Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice, especially one that uses plain text -- that'd be LaTeX, Scrivener, Overleaf, RMarkdown/Rstudio, Pandoc, Zettlr, Obsidian or something along the lines. If none of that means anything to you, you're almost certainly not using the citekeys.

    You can just uninstall BBT (and I'd probably recommend you do, given that it's a pretty heavy plugin for not using it).
  • samanthaculp
    Ah, ok I forgot to mention that I *sometimes* use Scrivener and Obsidian, which is I suppose why I had read some Scrivener forum tips to install Better BibTex in the beginning... I am actually revamping Obsidian for storing other general writing notes, so I *might* pull in Zotero citations (this is still just speculative though, I haven't fully set this up yet). In the case that I may experiment with Obsidian and Scrivener again in the future, would you still advise to un-install Better BibTex? Or should I go ahead to do the citation key migration and keep it for now?
  • adamsmith
    If you don't currently use citekeys anywhere (and it doesn't sound like you do) it really doesn't matter what you do, but I guess you might as well let it run, yes. If you want to work with Obsidian, I think you want the BBT plugin (though I don't know much about that workflow)
  • samanthaculp
    Thank you!
  • larrytalley
    Thanks very much for the info! Perhaps it might be good to offer a help link in the migration dialog! Thanks again.
  • 6500jmk4
    I am running Mac OS 26.3, Zotero 8.03, and Better BibTex 8.0.15.

    I received the popup for citation key, and I chose the first two options, which should have migrated the BBT keys into the new Citation Key field.

    Unfortunately, my BBT citations have disappeared.

    Fortunately, I have them saved in an external .bib file, so I can track them down if necessary, but is it possible to reset the Citation Key field in Zotero with my BBT citations?

    Thanks.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited yesterday at 8:11pm
    Just to be clear, we don't have anything to do with BBT. If you have a question or feedback for the BBT developer, you should submit it to them on GitHub.
  • 6500jmk4
    Thanks. Yes, I understand that. I am asking because I assumed that the Zotero update generated the pop-up options. If this popup was generated by BBT, I am happy to let them know. But, if this was generated by Zotero, then there seems to be a problem with the conversion process.

    In any case, the Zotero update wiped all my cite keys, leaving blanks in the new Cite Key field in the Zotero library. Since I am in the middle of a book project and have thousands of citations in Obsidian, it's not going to be a simple cut-and-paste fix. I imagine that others will find themselves in a similar situation.

    I appreciate the work the Zotero team does, and hopefully this issue does not cause too many headaches for users.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    This is a BBT dialog. (A Zotero dialog would never refer to a specific third-party plugin.)
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    the Zotero update wiped all my cite keys
    A Zotero update did not do this. Zotero migrated all fields in Extra to new fields that were added — that's it. Any special logic involving Citation Key is BBT.
  • adamsmith
    The popup is BBT.

    @dstillman -- would Zotero have migrated or try to migrate citation keys from Extra (with Citation key: author1984) to the new field?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited yesterday at 8:37pm
    Yes, Zotero would have migrated those to the new field, unless BBT does something to change or override that.
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