Issue - BibTex export - Colon in ID

8qube · 2026-10-26T17:57:01+00:00

Hi,

Zotero 10.0.6 - Windows

When exporting to BibTex some entries get a colon in their ID.
It is the case when the second character of the publication's name is a colon

For example, the following publication gets ID 'r_core_team_r:_2018':
https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/fullrefman.pdf

Best,
Greg

dstillman · 2026-10-26T18:03:28+00:00

We used to use a more permissive citekey format, and it still applies for items added to Zotero before 2020 so that keys people were already using didn't change. Items added since then get keys with only letters, digits, _ and -.

To fix this item, you can type the key you want into its Citation Key field (e.g., r_core_team_r_2018). The BibTeX export will then use that key.

If you want the simpler keys for all items, go to Settings → Advanced → Config Editor and create the boolean pref extensions.zotero.translators.BibTeX.export.simpleCitekey, set to true. That will potentially change the keys of your other older items.

(Also note that, if you're using a BibTeX-based workflow, you likely want to be using the Better BibTeX extension, in which case the above wouldn't apply.)

bwiernik · 2026-10-27T05:38:10+00:00

And if you are writing in Quarto or RMarkdown, you should use CSL JSON or CSL YAML format instead of BibTeX for your citation export for much more accurate citation formatting, especially software citations. BetterBibTeX can export these formats as well.