[Update] Zotra: using the power of Zotero in Emacs to manage citations and pdf files

mpedramfar · 2022-12-17 18:25

A while ago I made a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/vt0otx/using_the_power_of_zotero_in_emacs_orgmode_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about a small package I wrote, named [zotra](https://github.com/mpedramfar/zotra). This package allows you to use the power of Zotero translators in Emacs. With it, you can get a bibtex entry from a url, much like Zotero itself. With the new update, now you can get attachments, e.g. pdf files, from the url!

vasjpan02 · 2022-12-17 18:55

cool!

luiggi_oasis · 2022-12-17 20:08

This is madness, I've been considering dropping zotero for emacs for a while but Zotero is just too handy

randomatic · 2022-12-17 21:45

I’ve been using Mendeley for years because it produces a bibtex file.

tmting · 2022-12-17 21:50

Zotero does as well with Better Bibtex. And it also keeps the file updated when you change something in your library

linwaytin · 2022-12-17 23:52

Zotero is a great open source reference manager. So happy to see a cooperation between the two amazing works.

tianshuwang · 2022-12-18 07:08

Nice work! I switch from Zotero to ebib and have used the Zotero translation server for a long time. It's nice to see a dedicated package. It would be much appreciated if you could support ebib like [https://github.com/joostkremers/ebib/issues/220](https://github.com/joostkremers/ebib/issues/220) then I can remove the funs in my configs. One more thing to mention is that I found that the Zotero translation server seems to be a bit different from the Zotero connector plugin, and it works for fewer sites, which seems to require feedback from Zotero.

pathemata · 2022-12-18 08:34

my workflow with zotero is so efficient, I **just copy and paste the doi**. 1. zotero find the reference 2. generate a bibtex entry on a `~/.bib` file. 3. synchronize such that multiple computes have the same `~/.bib` Optionally with just the doi, I also get zotero to: 1. find the pdf 2. rename the pdf 3. move the pdf to a cloud storage (personal, not the zotero one) so all my computers have access to the bibliography library. Is this workflow possible?

AuroraDraco · 2022-12-18 13:28

Damn, this is actually incredible. I have got to try this. I have wanted to replace Zotero with an emacs based solution for a long while, but I haven't been able to because I couldn't find anything that works as seamlessly as Zotero. Thanks for posting this, I am excited to try it!

Face_Motor_Cut · 2022-12-18 17:50

One of my favourite packages :) Was already trying to implement the same thing, so thank you!

mpedramfar · 2022-12-18 18:53

Yes it is. You can add an entry with \`zotra-add-entry-from-search\` and you can download the pdf with \`zotra-download-attachment-from-search\`. You can customize \`zotra-download-attachment-default-directory\` and \`zotra-default-bibliography\` to choose where they'll be saved by default if no value is provided.

mpedramfar · 2022-12-18 19:03

Thanks! I don't personally use ebib so I'm not familiar with it and it'll be a bit hard to support it. It would be great if you could make a pull request to add some of these functions to the README so that users know what to add to their configs, like I did with bibtex-completion and org-ref. Yeah, Zotero and Zotero translation server are not identical. For example, see [https://github.com/zotero/translation-server/pull/59](https://github.com/zotero/translation-server/pull/59) If there are places where Zotero works and Zotero translation server doesn't, it would be best to open an issue in the translation server repo and take it from there. If this is an issue that's easy to solve, but the translation server doesn't want to implement it, I might be able to add it to zotra-cli.