Zotero

Free

zotero.org

Open-source reference manager collecting, organizing, annotating, and citing academic sources with word processor integration.

About Zotero

Zotero is a world-renowned, open-source reference manager developed by the non-profit Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Designed to serve students, researchers, professors, and scholars across all academic disciplines, Zotero simplifies the task of capturing bibliographic metadata, organizing research libraries, and generating accurate citation bibliographies in thousands of citation styles.

The platform features the Zotero Connector browser extension, which detects research papers, book records, news articles, and primary sources on the web and saves them—along with full-text open-access PDFs—with a single click. Zotero includes a built-in PDF reader and annotation tool that extracts highlighted text and notes into structured research outlines, backed by word processor plugins for Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice.

Zotero is completely free and open-source software under the AGPL license, available as a native desktop application for macOS, Windows, Linux, and iOS. It provides 300 MB of free cloud storage for library sync, with affordable annual storage upgrades or support for external WebDAV cloud storage.

Key Features

Core capabilities and technical highlights of Zotero

One-click browser capture via Zotero Connector extracting clean bibliographic metadata and open-access PDF files.

Built-in PDF reader and annotation workspace supporting multi-tab reading, color-coded highlights, and extracted notes.

Word processor plugins for Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice supporting over 10,000 citation styles.

Open-source plugin ecosystem supporting extensions for AI summaries, bibtex auto-export, and visual knowledge graphs.

Popular Use Cases

How teams, developers, and creators get value from Zotero

1Save academic paper citations, abstracts, and full-text PDFs from journal websites with one click using Zotero Connector.

2Insert in-text citations and auto-generate bibliographies in APA, Chicago, or IEEE format inside Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

3Highlight and annotate PDF research articles inside Zotero's native reader and export notes into thesis drafts.

4Collaborate on shared research bibliographies with academic co-authors using collaborative group libraries.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions and answers regarding Zotero

Is Zotero free?

Yes, Zotero is completely free and open-source software, providing 300 MB of free cloud sync storage with options to upgrade or use private WebDAV storage.

How does Zotero capture papers from the web?

The Zotero Connector browser extension automatically detects bibliographic information on pages like Google Scholar, PubMed, and JSTOR and saves it with one click.

Does Zotero work with Google Docs and Microsoft Word?

Yes, Zotero provides native plugins for Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice to insert citations and generate real-time bibliographies.

Can Zotero extract notes from PDF highlights?

Yes, Zotero allows you to highlight text inside PDFs and automatically extract those annotations into searchable, exportable notes.

Is Zotero's code open source?

Yes, Zotero is developed by a non-profit organization with transparent, auditable open-source code under the AGPL license.