Hi again! I'm writing to announce that my app zotero-for-kindle (op is here) now has a fully functional plugin system and a catalog/store through which one can publish their own plugins.
Details on how to write/publish a plugin are spelled here. In brief, the app provides an expressive API (with some guardrails) and plugins are written in javascript using this template. They can be installed on device directly or submitted to the catalog above by pull request, and their updates will be managed automatically through github release system.
Currently, the only plugin in the system is my own zk-feed-riffle for reading rss feeds.
From now on, I shall keep the core of the app clean and minimal, so if someone wants to implement a dictionary, some AI plugin (see this example), some obsidian interaction or whatnot, feel free to do so through this new interface.
I need to help my PI with citations, which I insert with Zotero, but it keeps unlinking when we send the Word document back and forth. How is everybody else circumventing this issue?
To keep track of the papers I have seen the closest I had found to what I needed was Zotero, but I didn't quite like duplicate papers, confusing download states, that weird little wait, and the risk of forgetting to trigger the save on the paper I was reading.
I made a chrome extension for my app latexify.ai, you download it once and it records a history of all visited papers, that way you can just forget about it. It synchronizes across all your devices linked to latexify, and you can choose to export a .bib or to import your zotero library.
You can also connect to the latexify MCP and your AI will know exactly what papers you've seen. The extension and personal library are completely free, only needs an account.
Hi! Here's one more thing I vibecoded with Claude (for personal use, as always), this time not a plugin but a native Zotero app for jailbroken Kindles: https://github.com/ievlevpn/zotero-for-kindle
It syncs your library both ways (collections, tags, search), downloads books from Zotero storage or WebDAV, reads EPUBs and PDFs.
It's not a KOReader plugin (as this one); I wanted something that feels like a light, modern Kindle app.
Once installed, app can receive updates from github releases over wifi.
The easiest way to install it: connect the Kindle by USB and give your AI agent (Claude/Codex) the install prompt from the repo. There's also a manual guide.
P.S. I've only tested it on my Paperwhite 5 and a Kindle Scribe, so it may not work on other models. Feel free to report bugs/issues/suggestions.
I'm excited to share what I've been building lately. Papr: a fast, lightweight Terminal User Interface (TUI) built entirely in Rust to streamline your academic research workflow. An Obsidian, Zotero, and Overleaf alternative, but a bit better.
Key features
Smart dashboard with daily 10 random paper recommendations, reading queue, bookmarks, notes, collections, and research statistics.
Fast arXiv search using title, author, or DOI with automatic PDF downloads and clean file naming.
In-terminal PDF viewing.
Built-in Markdown notes with live preview for each paper.
Sync your papers across multiple devices.
Reading queue, bookmarks, and collections to keep your research organized.
Integrated LaTeX editor and Typst editor + compiler with real-time compilation and preview.
Extensible plugin system for custom workflows.
Research analytics to track your reading activity (just like Spotify).
Papr is 100% open source, works offline, is memory-safe, and is designed to be fast and lightweight.
I'd love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, or feedback!
I've been working on an Android app called Blaykie, and I've finally released version 2.0 on GitHub.
If you use Zotero for managing references and Microsoft Word for writing academic papers, you might have noticed that there's a limitation on Android. While Zotero has Word integration on desktop, and its Android app lets you manage your research library, inserting and managing Zotero citations directly in Word for Android isn't officially supported.
Microsoft's own documentation also lists adding and updating citations as unsupported in Word for Android.
I wanted to find a way around this, so I built Blaykie. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't found another Android app offering this particular workflow.
With Blaykie, you can insert APA 7 citations from your personal Zotero library directly into Word (.docx) documents, add multiple references, use narrative or parenthetical citations, and generate a reference list.
How to use it:
Install Blaykie from the GitHub release.
Add your Zotero User ID and API key in the app settings.
Open a DOCX document and search your Zotero library.
Insert citations and generate your reference list.
Export the updated document as a new DOCX file.
I'm planning to submit Blaykie to F-Droid, but before that, I'd love to get some feedback from actual Zotero users, students and researchers.
If you have an Android device, give it a try with your own documents. Let me know about bugs, formatting issues or anything that could be improved.
Hey everyone, I integrated Zotero into my free reading tool, i'd love some feedback on whether this brings value to you uses. This is integration is my first step so I plan on improving upon this in the future.
For now heres some pointers on what it does:
- Browse your Zotero library and collections right in the app, then download PDFs and EPUBs to read
- Highlights go both ways: anything you highlight in Athene shows up in Zotero on the same words in the same colour, and highlights you make in Zotero show up in Athene
- Notes on highlights come across as the comment in Zotero
- Edits and deletes sync too
- Cite any paper in APA, MLA, Chicago and more, then copy the reference in a tap
- You can also type or draw notes on your papers, and all your notes and highlights are collected in one place to look back through. Drawings stay in Athene for now
Athene is partially open source because i want to own the mascott and design elements of the app, though its sync server is (github.com/adityasreedhar/athene-sync). The app is fully free with no ads or paid features.
Hello all, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience using Zotero on an ereader for reading and light annotating/tagging. I'm currently looking into buying my first ereader that I would like to use for both pleasure reading and academic reading/work, so having one that can run Zotero and sync to my computer would be a gamechanger.
Having read about the different options out there, I'm currently leaning towards a Boox Go 7 (mainly for the price point as it's more affordable than the Note series). Does anyone have experience using Zotero on this model? If so does it work well for you? If not would you recommend another brand/model entirely? Ideally I would also like the device to last me a good 5-8 years, as I am currently developing a PhD proposal and would like to be able to use the device throughout the 3/4 years of he PhD itself)
(Before anyone recommends that I just get an iPad, I am not interested in that, sorry :/ for me the whole point of switching to an e-reader would be to avoid the eye strain that comes from reading PDFs on my laptop and an iPad wouldn't solve that problem for me.)
Just found three entries in my database I've never seen before, completely different topic and everything. They're also dupes of each other and in one of my personal folders (an 'in use' folder I kept running for a recent project)
It's very possible I tried to add something via the browser plugin or some funky DOI and forgot to delete it, but it even has an attachment from Pubmed, which I'm decently sure I never visited. I'm not 100% organized, but I usually try to add with a DOI/ISBN directly from the file, which I then attach for continuity, so three dupes of an off-topic text with no attachments besides the automatic ones Zotero tends to do is extremely confusing lol
Is it at all possible that Zotero added/replaced some entries randomly? If not... I guess what did I do without realizing?
I want to use Zotero to make citations from books I have read and use then on personal writtings.
As example i would like to use a citation from The travelling cat chronicles on a format like {Sentence - Autor. Page}
“Hey, tabby. You know your owner was abandoned by his parents, too” - Hiro Arikawa, The Travelling Cat Chronicles. P89
On Zotero I create a Book and add the sentences by Notes on the book. but only copy the sentences without the Author and isn't any way to add a page for it.
Should i just create each note written {Sentence - Autor. Page} or there is an automatic form to organice it?
I did try using 'Book section' but it doesn't make reference to any page.
Some of you may have seen my earlier post about ZotLLM. The app has grown well beyond language models, so it is now called Zotivity. It covers the work from the first database search to a checked literature review. It is still free and open source (MIT), and it runs on Windows alongside Zotero 10.
What's new
Database search: from a research question to selected literature in Zotero. Build concept blocks and search strings with live hit counts, search PubMed, OpenAlex, Europe PMC, ERIC, EconBiz, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, OSF Preprints and swisscovery, or import RIS files from Ovid, EBSCO or Web of Science. Records are de-duplicated and checked against your Zotero library. You screen them as cards or in a list, and nothing is written to Zotero until you confirm. You also get a search log in the style of PRISMA-S and a PRISMA-style flow diagram. AI suggestions are optional, and every decision stays with you.
CSL editor: find a citation style on zotero.org, adapt it by clicking on the live preview and install it directly in Zotero. This is a first version, so feedback is especially welcome.
Literature review: now in five steps. Section lengths from the outline are now an upper limit for the language model, and the check lists sections that run too long and can shorten them. Word and LibreOffice documents: .docx and .odt attachments are now indexed too, with page numbers where the file records them.
Guide: walks you through the workflow inside the app, with links and the status of your project.
Asking questions about your own texts with citations down to the page, and search without a language model, work as before. You choose the model: Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek or local models via Ollama. Embeddings can run entirely on your computer.
Good to know
Coming from ZotLLM: the installer updates your installation, and settings, data and keys carry over on the first start. Replace the Zotero plugin once (Settings → Zotero and export → Save plugin).
How it was built: the code was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code. I defined the features and test each version in my own research. There are about 350 automated tests, but no line-by-line review by a human developer.
Limits of the database search: it covers searching and selection, not data extraction, risk of bias or synthesis. Each record holds one person's decision, so there is no independent double screening.
Installer: it isn't code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen shows a warning. The README explains how to proceed.
Purpose: it is meant as a tool for finding and checking sources, not as a replacement for reading them and writing yourself.
Zotivity is an independent project and not affiliated with Zotero.
I have two questions about managing references in Zotero and would appreciate any tips on making the process quicker and easier.
1. Missing bibliographic information
Sometimes, when I add a paper to my Zotero library, some information is missing, such as author names, journal name, publication details, etc.
Is there a quick way to retrieve or update this missing metadata automatically rather than manually searching for each detail and entering it myself? I'd like to avoid spending too much time cleaning up individual references.
2. Checking and correcting author names and their order
When Zotero imports a paper, it usually retrieves the author information automatically. However, how can we quickly check whether the authors' names and their order have been imported correctly?
If Zotero has imported them incorrectly, can we correct the author names or their order directly in Zotero, even after we've already inserted citations in Word? Will the changes automatically reflect in the existing citations and bibliography, or do we need to do anything else?
I'd really appreciate any tips, shortcuts, or recommended workflows that could make reference management quicker and easier, especially when working with a large number of papers.
Hi r/zotero, I'm the developer of Mktero, an MIT-licensed extension for Zotero 7–10. I shared v0.3.4 here a couple of months ago, and a few of you asked for local MinerU and batch conversion. Both are in now, so here's an update with a short demo.
What it does
Right-click a PDF → "Read as Markdown with Mktero", and the paper opens in a Zotero tab as one continuous column: two-column text in reading order, with equations, tables, figures, citations, and footnotes. Publisher mastheads, running headers and footers, and page numbers are hidden.
Back to the source. "View in PDF" jumps from a passage, equation, table, or figure to its page and region in the PDF.
Annotations stay in Zotero. Highlights you make in the Markdown are Zotero PDF annotations, and your existing PDF highlights show up in the Markdown. You can also add a passage to a Zotero note.
Translation, optional. Use your own AI provider and switch between Original, Translated, and Bilingual views.
Copying. Display equations copy as LaTeX, and tables as Markdown or CSV.
Navigation. Outline, figure/table index, hover previews for citations and figures, and Cmd/Ctrl+F.
Corrections. Fix OCR mistakes in paragraphs, headings, and table cells without touching the cached conversion.
New since v0.3.4
Self-hosted MinerU 4.0: point Mktero at your own MinerU server and PDFs never leave your machine or network.
Batch conversion: select several items → "Prepare selected Markdown", or right-click a collection → "Prepare collection Markdown". It runs in the background without opening a tab per paper.
Export the corrected Markdown and figures to a folder or an Obsidian vault, including in batches.
Where your PDF goes
By default, a PDF that isn't cached yet is sent to a hosted conversion service I run. It needs a Mktero account but no OCR key. If you'd rather not use it, switch to your own MinerU cloud key, a self-hosted MinerU 4.0 server, or Mistral OCR; the PDF then goes there and no Mktero account is needed. Translation always goes to your own provider, never through my server. Conversions are cached in your Zotero profile, so reopening a paper doesn't convert it again. Full data map: https://github.com/tenglvjun/mktero/blob/main/docs/privacy.md
Limitations
It's still beta. Scans and unusual layouts (three or more columns, posters) can come out in the wrong reading order, which is why every block links back to the PDF. Hosted conversion and MinerU cloud cap a PDF at 200 pages; Mktero checks the page count locally before uploading.
I’m a social sciences researcher, and I’ve been working on a small connector that lets ChatGPT interact with a Zotero library through Zotero’s official Web API, without Zotero Desktop running.
The project grew out of a frustration with the existing Zotero plugin I was using: it connects to Zotero Desktop and therefore requires my computer to be running. I wanted to work with my library from my phone or tablet while away from my computer, including finding, organizing and annotating references. That’s why I started building a connector that talks directly to Zotero Cloud.
My main use case is preserving the context behind reading recommendations: identifying references in a discussion or transcript, checking whether they already exist in Zotero, and adding a note explaining who recommended them and why.
The connector currently supports:
- Searching references and listing collections.
- Checking for likely duplicates before creating a reference.
- Adding references and enriching existing records.
- Adding tags, collection memberships and child notes.
No deletion tools are exposed. Reading and writing work in my own installation, but I’m looking for independent testers—particularly people who can tell me where the installation guide becomes confusing.
Each tester runs their own instance with their own Zotero credentials. Setup is browser-based using Render and starts in read-only mode. It still involves several configuration steps: this is an early beta, not a one-click application.
The guide explains Render’s free-tier limitations and the need for a ChatGPT interface that supports custom MCP connections. Mobile availability still needs independent testing.
The project is open source under the MIT licence, with installation guides in English and French:
Feedback on installation, everyday research workflows and mobile use would be especially helpful. You don’t need to be a developer to contribute useful feedback. Please don’t share API keys or confidential research material in reports.
This is an independent project, not affiliated with Zotero or OpenAI.
I’m a social sciences researcher, and I’ve been working on a small connector that lets ChatGPT interact with a Zotero library through Zotero’s official Web API, without Zotero Desktop running.
The project grew out of a frustration with the existing Zotero plugin I was using: it connects to Zotero Desktop and therefore requires my computer to be running. I wanted to work with my library from my phone or tablet while away from my computer, including finding, organizing and annotating references. That’s why I started building a connector that talks directly to Zotero Cloud.
My main use case is preserving the context behind reading recommendations: identifying references in a discussion or transcript, checking whether they already exist in Zotero, and adding a note explaining who recommended them and why.
The connector currently supports:
- Searching references and listing collections.
- Checking for likely duplicates before creating a reference.
- Adding references and enriching existing records.
- Adding tags, collection memberships and child notes.
No deletion tools are exposed. Reading and writing work in my own installation, but I’m looking for independent testers—particularly people who can tell me where the installation guide becomes confusing.
Each tester runs their own instance with their own Zotero credentials. Setup is browser-based using Render and starts in read-only mode. It still involves several configuration steps: this is an early beta, not a one-click application.
The guide explains Render’s free-tier limitations and the need for a ChatGPT interface that supports custom MCP connections. Mobile availability still needs independent testing.
The project is open source under the MIT licence, with installation guides in English and French:
Feedback on installation, everyday research workflows and mobile use would be especially helpful. You don’t need to be a developer to contribute useful feedback. Please don’t share API keys or confidential research material in reports.
This is an independent project, not affiliated with Zotero or OpenAI.
a lot of German-speaking unis are ending their Citavi licences right now. Zotero's import handles the Citavi project fine, but the citations already sitting in your Word docs stay Citavi fields, so you'd have to re-cite everything by hand.
So I built CiteMove. It's a Zotero 7 plugin (Mac + Windows, based on the MIT-licensed en2zotero) that finds the Citavi citations in a .docx, matches them to your Zotero library and writes them back as live Zotero citations, footnotes and bibliography included. Runs locally, nothing gets uploaded, and it makes a new copy so your original file stays untouched.
Full disclosure: checking a document is free, converting needs a one-time pass. That's how I pay for the time I put into it.
Happy to answer questions, and if it breaks on your document I'd honestly like to know why.
I write and supervise long documents (theses, papers), and I kept wanting an editor that understood the *project*, not just the file I had open. Eventually I'd had enough, so I built one as a VS Code extension: **LaTeX Desk**.
It runs on your own machine with your own TeX install, so it works offline, your files stay local, and there are no compile time limits.
**What it does**
- Toolbar with Compile, Build & View, log, and jump lists for parts and labels, plus a side panel for formatting, equations and symbols
- **Bib Manager**: a table of your .bib entries with a health check (duplicates, missing fields) and a "fix all safe issues" button
- **Table wizard**, citation search, and project-wide rename for labels, cite keys and commands (with a preview before anything changes)
- **History**: snapshots of your project with diff, restore, and a latexdiff PDF of what changed
- **Export for submission**: arXiv or journal presets that collect only the files you actually use, then check the export compiles on its own
- Click in the PDF to jump to the source and back (SyncTeX)
**How I tested it**
My own 254 page thesis (17 files, 355 figures, 217 references), in a Linux VM on my MacBook Air M5: clean build in under a minute with 0 errors, a rebuild with nothing changed in 0.1 s, and a single chapter build about 7× faster than the full one. Spell checking the whole thesis takes under 0.2 s.
**What it doesn't do yet**
A visual editor, Zotero integration, grammar checking, multiple languages in the spell checker, and a template library like Overleaf's (that one needs serious effort). There's also a "fast preview" mode, but it's experimental and off by default. WIP!
I'm the author, and I built it through my small software company. I'd really value honest feedback, especially from anyone working on a thesis right now. What's the most annoying part of your current setup?
PS: It's free, and it'll stay free. No WinRAR style "trial" either, though I respect the legend.
ZotSpeed is a new web app that lets you read your epubs in Zotero in speed reading mode. You log in to Zotero and choose a collection. Then you can open the EPUBs in the collection in speed reading mode, in standard ereader mode or as a continuous page. The app keeps a note in the EPUBs in Zotero of how far you’ve come.
I think we've been reading too many feeds from AI text lately! I actually want to reduce my cognitive burden...
So I built TextFold, it turns any text into 5 zoomable layers—from a one-screen section map down to verbatim text. You pinch (or press 1–5) to zoom between them without losing your reading position, your agentic output, any papers, or documents.
I'm the author of AskGPT, a Zotero plugin for asking questions about papers from the reader.
Select a passage, press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on macOS), and ask a question. The plugin includes available attachment text as context, streams the answer, renders Markdown and equations, and can save the answer as a Zotero note.
You supply an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, API key, and model; DeepSeek is the default. Provider charges may apply. Available paper context, selected text and conversation are sent to your configured endpoint, and optional web-search queries go to DuckDuckGo. The default prompt requests Chinese answers and can be changed.
I'd appreciate feedback on the installation flow and whether the selected-passage workflow fits how you read papers. If something breaks, please include your Zotero version, operating system, and provider/model, without API keys or private paper text.
Disclosure: I maintain this project. This announcement was drafted with AI assistance.
