Zotero is a citation manager. Citation mangers help you organize and cite your sources, whether or your own work or for a group project.
Zotero can help you:
- Save the sources you find,
- Edit their citation information,
- Organize them,
- Add notes to them, and
- Create citations for them.
Zotero can also help you share your own research!
There are three different versions of Zotero: desktop app, mobile app, and web library. These different interfaces all allow you to do the tasks above. There are a few differences in how they work, which you can see below.
- Desktop App
- App that downloads to your desktop or laptop computer.
- Has access all Zotero's citation management features, including word processor integration, making it the most complete version of Zotero.
- Does not require creating an account.
- Stores files locally on your computer unless you create an account. Then you can sync files across computers using cloud storage.
- Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not available on Chromebooks.
- Web Library
- Accesses Zotero from your internet browser.
- Has most of Zotero's features for saving, annotating, and sharing citations but cannot work with the word processor plugins, so you will need to generate a citation to copy and paste when citing.
- Requires creating an account.
- Can access files from anywhere using cloud storage.
- Available on any web browser, including mobile browsers.
- Mobile App
- Allows for using Zotero on iOS and Android mobile devices. The iOS version is optimized for both iPhone and iPad.
- Has most of Zotero's features for saving, annotating, and sharing citations but cannot work with the word processor plugins, so you will need to generate a citation to copy and paste when citing.
- Requires creating an account.
- Can access files from anywhere using cloud storage.
