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Citation Managers: Notes & Annotations

Resources for using Citation Management Tools to organize and cite research.

Notes and Annotations

You can take notes on sources within Zotero and for PDFs, you can annotate and write notes directly in the document. You can copy and paste those notes into your documents, or export them to print or save elsewhere.

Non-PDF Sources

Taking Notes

  1. Click on a source (either from My Library or a specific Collection) that you want to take notes on

  2. Click on the Notes tab in the right panel

  3. Click on Add to start writing a note

  4. In the note screen, a top menu bar has icon options to format the text, choose a text color, highlight note text, and insert a link

    • Zotero notes feature with icon tool bar in a green box with the label note content options and the text format menu open and indicated by a red box

  5. At the bottom of the note screen are options to relate the note to other notes and sources and/or to tag the note

    • Zotero notes screen showing bottom menu options of related and tags

 

Exporting Notes

  1. In the library you are working from, right click on the source you have added notes to

  2. Select "Generate Report from Item"​

    • Zotero source right click menu with options to add items, create, duplicate, trash, export, and generate report

  3. Zotero will create a report with basic citation information, tags, notes, and, if existing, a URL

    • Zotero report screen with source description items in a red box

  4. To print or save the report, click on File in the report's top menu bar and choose accordingly​

 

PDF Sources

​​​​​​Taking Notes

  1. Click on a source (either from My Library or a specific Collection) that you want to take notes on

  2. Double-click on the PDF title - will open in another window (see green box in the image below)

  3. In the top menu bar, there are icon options to highlight text, add a note, and select an area of text which will create a box around the text area (see red box in the image below)

    • Zotero PDF reader menu bar with article title in a green box and text format icons in a red box.

  4. The notes will automatically add a page number and there is also a place to add tags to the note

  5. After marking up text and taking notes (see green box in the image below), go the right panel section

  6. Under "Item Notes," click on the + sign, and select "Add Item Note from Annotations" (see red box in the image below) - this will populate the notes field (see purple box in the image below)

    • Note: you can return to the PDF document any time and make more notes, though you will have to also repeat step 6 to upload your new notes.

Zotero annotated PDF article with highlighted text in red and blue, with instructions in purple box

Exporting Notes

  1. Close the PDF reader to return to the Library you were working from

  2. You will notice an "Annotations" line next to a sticky note icon (see red box in the image below) under the title of the source you were notating (see green box in the image below)

  3. To get only your notes, right click on "Annotations" and select "Export Note"​ (see yellow box in the image below)

    • Zotero annotations popup menu with source title in green box, annotations in a red box, export notes in yellow box

    • Then choose HTML and check "Include Zotero Links" box
    • The report layout will look like this:

    • Zotero annotations screen with highlighted text in a red box, notes in a green box, and text selection in a purple box

  4. To get notes plus the source title, right click on "Annotations" and select "Generate Report from Item"​ (see purple box in the image below)

    • Zotero annotations popup menu with source title in green box, annotations in a red box, generate reports in purple box

    • The report layout will look like this:

    • Zotero report screen with source title in a purple box and annotations listed below

  5. To get notes plus full source description information, right click on the "Source Title" (see green box in image below) and select "Generate Report from Item"

    • Zotero source popup menu with source title in green box and green arrow point to generate reports in a green box​​​​​

    • The report layout will look like this:

    • Zotero report screen with source description items in a red box

  6. To print or save the report, click on File in the report's top menu bar and choose accordingly