A Note on Updating Citations in Zotero - a potential solution to be tested?

[SvonGrebmer]

Hello Pat,

This is Sarah and I just started at the OSC. I am just going through your tutorial, so much work and really well designed!

I had a thought on the citation updating in Zotero (this may not work though but just putting it out there). The issue was raised on how to keep .bib files updated if anything gets added/ changes in Zotero. A potential way could be through the BetterBibTeXplugin which is what I have been using to work in LateX/TexStudion (not Quarto) so far, see the discussion here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/89720/keeping-a-bibtex-file-per-collection-in-sync-with-zotero. Installation of the plugin can be done via here: https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/.
Once the plugin is added to Zotero, when you right-click on collection/subcollection > Export Collection, you should be able to select Better BibBeX as Format, and then tick keepUpdated > OK.

Some more info on here as well: https://guides.library.yale.edu/bibtex/zotero-and-latex.

If you then go to the Zotero Settings, you will have an additional tab for Better Bibtex with some more settings options, including managing the automatic updates of the exported .bib file in a directory and some other cool options like exporting doi and url or only one and all subcollections or not.

However, you need to check what that means for the citation keys and if it is compatible with RStudio/Quarto in the same way you described citation keys now (see perhaps here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/97758/better-bibtex-citation-key-format-help) - I do not expect issues here really because all info should be in the bib file to then create any citation style you need. One thing I did realise was that in the cases where citations are inserted via the visual editor, then the issue becomes about the bib file that RStudio generates (which then is not updated even if things change in Zotero) - BetterBibTeX then perhaps sounds like a fix for the manual citation entry option which we could set as the recommended option to avoid this deleting/remaking the bib file when things change?

Let me know what you think!

Best,
Sarah