Announcing RTF/ODF Scan for Zotero

May 12, 2013: Updated to reflect changes in the 1.0.9 update of the plugin. Changes are backwards compatible, i.e. everything that worked before still works now. See in particular the section on hidden preferences below

Support for Scrivener and google docs is one of the most frequently requested Zotero features. It is with great excitement that Frank Bennett and I announce today RTF/ODF Scan for Zotero, a Zotero plugin that extends Zotero support to any word processor capable of saving/exporting ODF (Open Document Format — .odt). You can find a brief, but comprehensive set of instructions on the project webpage. Here some additional comment and pictures.

The Short version

The plugin will install a “Scannable Cite” translator for Zotero. With that translator you can create citation markers to be inserted in your document (in Scrivener, google docs, etc.). Save/Export that document as an ODF file and convert the markers to Zotero citations using the “RTF/ODF Scan” feature from Zotero’s gear menu. Open the converted document in LibreOffice and set a citation style using Zotero’s LibreOffice plugin. Done!

In a Nutshell

What you need:

• A word processor that should ideally be able to save/export as ODF (.odt)
• Zotero for Firefox and/or Standalone on all computers you want to use
• Install the RTF/ODF Scan for Zotero plugin from the project webpage by clicking on “Download Add-on”
• You will need LibreOffice and the Zotero LibreOffice plugin installed on at least one computer. You will only need this for the final editing step.

Creating Citation Markers

Select the Scannable Cite translator as “Default Output”

After installing the plugin (no re-start required), set the Default output format for quick copy in Zotero’s Export preferences to “Scannable Cite.”  (The export format is installed by the add-on). You can now either drag&drop to insert citation markers into a document  or use  the ctrl+alt+c (cmd+shift+c on Mac) to copy them to the clipoboard and then paste them to your document.

A citation marker will look like this:

{ | Smith, (2012) | | |zu:2433:WQVBH98K}

It has five sections for — in that order — prefix, a summary of the cited item, a locator (e.g. a page number), a suffix, and a unique identifier. E.g. the marker

{cf. | Smith, (2012) |ch. 3 |, for the main argument |zu:2433:WQVBH98K}

Drag & drop citation markers into google doc

Would be converted into  (Smith, 2012, Chapter 3, for the main argument) when APA style is selected. You can use simple mark-up to use italics and bold print in suffix and affix: a single asterisk for *italics* two  asterisks for **bold**. Citation markers directly adjacent to each other will be turned into a single citation, as in (Smith 1776, 2012). Dragging/copying multiple items from Zotero at once will automatically create such adjacent markers. Locators require a specific set of abbreviations (e.g. p. or pp. for pages). For a complete list see the add-on’s webpage. A sample google docs document with citation markers is here.

Saving and Converting Documents

ODF export in Scrivener

ODF Export in Google Docs

Once you’re done writing, export your document as ODF. Many word processors have that option, including google docs and Scrivener. If your word processor does not export ODF, you can save in a different format (RTF, .doc), open the file with LibreOffice and save as ODF.

Then go to Zotero and click on the RTF/ODF Scan option in the gears/action menu. Select “ODF (to citations)” as File format, the .odt file you saved as “Input File” and a location for the (converted) “Output File.” Click “Next” to perform the conversion.

Selecting a Citation Style

Open the converted document — by default it will have the same filename as the input file with (citations) appended — in LibreOffice. The citations will show up without any particular formatting and normally be shaded in dark grey. Click “Set Document Preferences” in Zotero’s LibreOffice plugin and select the citation style you want to use (you can change it later).  All citations will now appear formatted correctly. You can insert a bibliography by clicking “Insert Bibliography” from the same toolbar. The document is now indistinguishable from a document written entirely with the LibreOffice plugin, so you can opt to edit or continue writing it in LIbreOffice and citations will update according to changes in your Zotero database as well as the citation style.

RTF/ODF Scan as a Collaboration Tool

RTF/ODF Scan will work with group libraries, so it is ideally suited for collaborative writing. The only caveat is that, unlike Zotero 3.0+, it will not “store references” in a document, so all people collaborating on a paper need to cite items from a shared library, typically a group.

Reverse Conversion

RTF/ODF Scan can also convert LibreOffice citations in the Reference Mark format back into citation markers. For that purpose choose “ODF (markers)” as the file input format. This may come in handy if you have authored a document in LIbreOffice so far, but want to switch to google docs or Scrivener, you can convert your citations to markers. Another use is the ability to merge adjacent citations as requested by several Zotero users (this is Endnote’s default behavior, so many users are accustomed to it). RTF/ODF scan will do that simply by converting the same document back and forth.

Hidden Preferences

You can modify markers with two hidden preferences. See here for general instructions on accessing hidden preferences. Both of these preferences can be toggled back and forth using right-click –> Toggle in the about:config settings of Firefox/Zotero.

extensions.zotero.translators.ODFScan.includeTitle
will include the title of the item in the marker (default: false, i.e. only author, (date))

extensions.zotero.translators.ODFScan.useZoteroSelect
will use zotero://select links instead of simple item ids. These have the disadvantage of being longer, but can be used to access Zotero items directly (e.g. by pasting them in Firefox’s URL bar). This preference affects both the translator and the markers produced by reverse conversion. (default: false, i.e. citation markers as displayed above). Because of the way library IDs are constructed in Zotero, the group IDs used in the default markers and those in zotero://select differ. Trying to adjust them manually will break ODF scan

Getting Help

Please post questions and problems to the plugin’s thread on the Zotero forums.

{See | Smith, (2012) |p. 45 | for an example |zu:2433:WQVBH98K}