We’re thrilled to announce the release of Zotero 7, the biggest update in Zotero’s 18-year history and a major leap forward in design, performance, and functionality.

A Major Redesign

Zotero 7 introduces a beautiful, modern design that will still feel familiar to long-time Zotero users.

New Item Pane

As part of the redesign, we’ve taken the opportunity to rethink some core elements of Zotero. One of the most important changes is in the item pane, where we’ve replaced the horizontal tabs (Info, Tags, Notes, etc.) with collapsible vertical sections and a side navigation bar for quick access to specific sections. This approach allows us to show additional information right in the item pane without compromising usability. Plugins are also able to easily create dedicated sections with custom information or actions.

At the top of the item pane, a new customizable header lets you choose what info to show: title, title/author/date, or even a bibliography entry in your chosen citation style. The header remains visible when the Info section is collapsed, so you can choose to keep the Info section closed when you’re not editing metadata and still see the title and other important info.

Dark Mode

We heard the calls: Zotero 7’s new design includes a gorgeous dark mode. We know dark mode is important to many people, so we wanted to do it right: every part of the new design was created with dark mode in mind.

We’ve also implemented basic dark-mode support for PDF and EPUB content, with more advanced rendering options coming soon. If you need to view a document in its original state, you can disable dark mode for content from the reader’s View menu.

Compact vs. Comfortable

We now offer two density options for Zotero’s user interface, Compact and Comfortable. Compact resembles the previous density, while Comfortable, the new default, provides a more approachable experience for new users with smaller libraries or people who just prefer a bit more breathing room.

New App Icon

Finally, to complete the look, we’ve created a delightful new app icon.

Improved Performance

Zotero 7 is dramatically faster across the board, and it brings native support for Apple Silicon Macs, 64-bit Windows, and Windows on ARM, ensuring smooth operation on the latest hardware.

Improved Reader with EPUB and Snapshot Support

Zotero 7 includes the next major version of the built-in PDF reader — which, in fact, is no longer just a PDF reader!

EPUB

EPUB is the most popular ebook file format, and many people prefer EPUBs to PDFs for the improved reading experience they provide. Unlike PDFs, which have fixed layouts, most EPUBs allow text to reflow to the size of your window or device, and you can adjust the font and text size to your liking.

EPUBs now open in Zotero’s built-in reader in the same way as PDFs, and you can annotate them and add those annotations to notes just as you’ve been able to for PDFs.

Zotero can also automatically retrieve metadata for most EPUBs and create a parent item.

While Zotero won’t yet download EPUBs automatically from websites, we’ll soon make it possible to specify whether to save PDFs or EPUBs when both are available, and then we’ll begin the process of updating site translators to support EPUBs. If there’s a site that provides EPUBs that you’d like us to support, please let us know in the Zotero Forums.

Webpage Snapshots

Zotero already saves webpage snapshots on news articles and other pages, and those now open automatically in the new reader as well, enabling you to annotate webpages as easily as PDFs.

New Annotation Types

We’ve also added support for creating ink, underline, and text annotations. Ink annotations were already supported on iOS, and it’s now possible to create them in the desktop app as well. (This works best if you have a touchscreen PC or stylus.)

Underline annotations work just like highlights, while text annotations allow you to add text directly to the page.

Underline annotations are available for PDFs, EPUBs, and snapshots, while ink and text annotations are available for PDFs only.

Smart Reference Popup

Hovering over a citation or internal link now opens a popup showing the associated reference or figure. No need to jump back and forth just to check a reference.

Smarter Citing

Citing your sources is now faster and more intuitive. The citation dialog automatically suggests items you have selected in the items list or have open in the reader. Citing something you’re viewing is now as simple as clicking Add/Edit Citation and pressing Enter/Return.

Collection Search

Quickly find the collection you’re looking for in any of your libraries and jump to it without your fingers leaving the keyboard.

Press Enter/Return after typing to move to the collections list, up/down-arrow to move between results, and Esc to clear the search.

Tabs Menu

See a vertical list of all your tabs, type to filter the list, and quickly jump to a given tab. You can also quickly close or reorder tabs right from the menu.

Attachment Previews

See a preview of PDFs, EPUBs, snapshots, and images right in the item pane without opening the reader.

Collections and Searches in the Trash

Deleted collections and searches are now moved to the trash, just like items. If you delete a collection by accident, you can easily restore it from the trash with all the same items and subcollections.

“Libraries and Collections” List

A new section in the item pane shows all the collections and libraries the current item is in. (You can still hold down a modifier key to highlight the collections an item is in.)

Customizable File Renaming

Zotero has always automatically renamed files, but you can now rename files according to a much wider array of options. Write complex rules to make sure filenames always contain all the information you need.

Improved Accessibility

We’ve put in a huge amount of work to make Zotero more accessible to users of screen readers, and we’ve improved keyboard navigation throughout the app. We’re still working to make additional accessibility improvements and will be rolling out more changes in upcoming updates.

Improved Plugin Architecture

Zotero’s own functionality is supplemented by a vast ecosystem of plugins that can transform the Zotero experience: advanced BibTeX support, knowledge management, language translation, custom scripts, AI integration, and much more.

Zotero 7 introduces a new plugin architecture with restartless loading/unloading and built-in support for common integration points (items-list columns, item-pane sections, settings panes, etc.), which helps make plugins easier to write and more stable across Zotero updates. We’re working with plugin developers to add additional integration points.

All plugins need to be updated for Zotero 7. If there’s a plugin you depend on, check with the plugin developer to see if a version is available for Zotero 7.

And Much More

The Zotero 7 update includes much more than we can list here. See the changelog for additional details.

Get Zotero 7

If you’re already running Zotero, you can upgrade from within Zotero by going to Help → “Check for Updates…”.

Existing Windows users should install 64-bit Zotero for the best performance. You can reinstall over your existing version without affecting your data.

If you’re using an Apple Silicon Mac and do an in-app upgrade from Zotero 6, Zotero 7 will continue to run under Rosetta immediately after updating, so restart it for native performance.

Don’t yet have Zotero? Download Zotero 7 now.

Teaching Zotero to Undergraduate Students

Friday, December 9, 2022
10:00 AM US Eastern Time

Thursday, December 15, 2022
3:00 PM US Eastern Time

What are the research and citation management needs of undergraduate students, and how does Zotero fit in? In this 60-minute interactive session, we’ll share tips and strategies for teaching Zotero to novice researchers, based on the instructor’s experience teaching Zotero library instruction sessions at a small liberal arts college and a research university.

About the instructor

Brendan O’Connell is an Outreach Coordinator with Zotero. He is an academic librarian by training, with many years of experience in higher education and technology, most recently at Smith College and North Carolina State University in the United States. His work as a librarian has included teaching Zotero to hundreds of students, faculty, and fellow librarians in many different formats and settings.

Brendan’s work with Zotero will focus on a variety of outreach and engagement efforts, including teaching webinars that will train librarians to better teach Zotero to students and faculty at their home institutions, as well as creating tutorial materials for a general academic audience. He is passionate about open-source software and protecting user privacy, values long held in common between libraries and Zotero.

We’re thrilled to announce the release of Zotero 6, the next major version of Zotero and the biggest upgrade in Zotero’s history. Zotero 6 introduces an array of new features to transform how you do research, including a completely new way of working with PDFs and notes.

PDF Reader and New Note Editor

With Zotero 6, you can now:

• Open PDFs in a new built-in reader within the main Zotero window, in a new tabbed interface
• Clean up metadata for items while viewing your PDFs
• Mark up PDFs with highlights, notes, and image annotations
• Add annotations to Zotero notes with automatic citations, in a powerful new note editor
• Cite other items directly in notes using Zotero’s familiar citation dialog
• Insert notes into your Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs documents with active Zotero citations for automatically generating bibliographies
• Export notes to external Markdown editors with links back to Zotero items and PDFs

Together with Zotero’s powerful saving abilities and word processor plugins, Zotero can now help you with the entire path from an interesting item online to a cited quote in your final document.

Seamless Annotation Syncing

Like all Zotero library data, the annotations you create will automatically sync across all your Zotero devices. There’s no need to close a PDF on one computer or worry about losing annotations due to sync conflicts.

In addition to annotating your own files, you can also create PDF annotations in group libraries, allowing you to collaboratively mark up PDFs with other group members and immediately see each other’s changes.

Zotero’s PDF reader syncs with our new Zotero iOS app, allowing you to highlight and take notes on your iPad or iPhone and then quickly pull those annotations into a note or word processor document when you’re back at your computer. You can even view ink annotations made with an Apple Pencil.

PDFs will open automatically to your current page, no matter what device you last used.

Annotations in Notes

After you’ve marked up a PDF, you can quickly add some or all annotations to a Zotero note.

Annotations added to notes aren’t just plain text: they include information about the source PDF that lets you quickly jump back to the original page to see context, generate bibliography entries using Zotero’s word processor plugins, toggle annotation colors on and off, include links back to Zotero when exporting to Markdown, and even restore accidentally deleted citations to make sure you’ve properly attributed a quote.

With note templates, you can customize the format of the annotations you add.

If you previously used the ZotFile extension to extract PDF annotations to Zotero notes, you can now use Zotero directly and benefit from these new features.

Adding Notes to Word Processors

When using one of the Zotero word processor plugins, a new “Add Note” button lets you insert any Zotero note directly into the document. Citations in the note, including those generated from PDF annotations, will remain active, so they’ll automatically be added to your bibliography.

Markdown Export

Notes now have their own Quick Copy setting, with a choice between Markdown + Rich Text or raw HTML. You can copy or drag notes from the items list, or even individual annotations from the PDF reader, directly to an external editor, with Markdown links back to the item and PDF page associated with annotations.

Embedded Images in Notes

Zotero notes now support embedded images. You can drag in images from your computer or the web, and they’ll sync to your other devices. You can even create an image annotation in the PDF reader and drag it straight into a note to create a cited image in your document.

Additional Zotero 6 Features

Zotero 6 also continues to refine Zotero’s existing functionality and addresses some popular feature requests.

Non-English Spellchecking

If you write in a language other than English, you can now add over 40 dictionaries for spellchecking in Zotero notes. No more red squiggly lines!

Improved Mendeley and Citavi Import

If you’re currently a Mendeley user (or know one), Zotero’s built-in Mendeley importer will now import Mendeley annotations for use in the new PDF reader. And a new import process allows you to import your Mendeley data directly from the online library (despite the database encryption added by Elsevier that made it impossible to import from a local copy of your own Mendeley library).

Importing from Citavi will now bring in Citavi PDF annotations.

Bundled Safari Extension

For Mac users running Big Sur or later, the Zotero Connector for Safari is now bundled with Zotero and can be enabled from the Extensions pane of the Safari preferences.

Other Changes

For the full list of changes in Zotero 6, see the changelog.

Get Zotero 6

If you’re already running Zotero, you can upgrade from within Zotero by going to Help → “Check for Updates…”.

Don’t yet have Zotero? Get it now from the download page.

Last year, we added Google Docs integration to Zotero, bringing to Google Docs the same powerful citation functionality — with support for over 9,000 citation styles — that Zotero offers in Word and LibreOffice.

Today we’re adding a feature that lets you move documents between Google Docs and Word or LibreOffice while preserving active Zotero citations. You can now begin writing a document collaboratively in Google Docs and move it to Word or LibreOffice for final editing, or vice versa.

When you use this feature, Zotero will convert the citations and bibliography to a temporary format that can be transferred safely between word processors.

We’ve added instructions for specific word processors, but the basic process is the same:

1. Choose “Switch to a Different Word Processor…” from the plugin’s Document Preferences window.
2. Save the converted file.
3. Open the file in the other word processor.
4. Click Refresh to continue using it.

In Google Docs, you can also choose “Switch Word Processors…” from the Zotero menu.

While the process should be entirely reversible, we recommend performing the conversion in a copy of the file.

While this conversion process is required to move active citations in and out of Google Docs, you can also use it to move documents between Word and LibreOffice without some of the problems inherent in Bookmarks mode.

You can start using this feature today in Zotero 5.0.72 and Zotero Connector 5.0.57.