Word processor plugins

Download a plugin

Zotero allows you to automatically generate citations for sources in your Zotero library and add those citations directly into a document as you type. To take advantage of this feature, you should first download a plugin that is compatible with your word processor. The Zotero page on word processor integration has links to plugins for Word, LibreOffice, and third-party plugins for other programs. The Zotero integration with Google Docs is included in the browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. See the link above for instructions on how to download and use Zotero in the word processor of your choice.

⚠️ A note on Zotero and Bluebook citations

When using any type of citation style, it is important to manually proofread citations generated by Zotero, since they can occasionally contain mistakes. Because legal citation is particularly complex, you should be especially careful when generating Bluebook citations using Zotero, especially for statutes, cases, and other primary sources. Zotero, for example, may not be able to handle parallel citations, jurisdictional differences in citation formats, or the many abbreviations that the Bluebook prescribes.

There is a variant of Zotero, Juris-M (or Jurism) that was created to address some of the problems with Zotero and legal citations. For example, Juris-M allows you to configure abbreviations that will be automatically applied to citations. Apart from its added features, Juris-M looks and functions almost exactly like Zotero, so the screenshots and instructions in this guide will still apply.

Because of its small development team, Juris-M is updated somewhat inconsistently. Features and fixes present in the latest versions of Zotero may not be implemented in Juris-M. If you feel that its features might be useful to you, we recommend trying it to see if it meets your needs. (Be sure to follow the instructions on backing up your Zotero library before installing Juris-M).

Editing citations

As noted above, you will need to edit the citations generated by Zotero because they will not always adhere to Bluebook rules. Since the Zotero citations are dynamically linked to your Zotero library, however, your edits will disappear when your citations refresh unless you take the steps below:

  1. Type your document and insert citations as you type. Leave incorrectly-formatted citations as is for now. You can keep track of the edits you will need to make using comments in the document.
  2. Check over the accuracy of all your bibliographic information. Do this by checking the sources in your Zotero library using the desktop client. Select "Refresh" (the icon is a blank page with green arrows pointing in a circle:Zotero refresh icon) in your Zotero plugin or in the Zotero menu on Google Docs to see the changes reflected in your citations.
  3. When you are sure that you have cited all the sources you plan to cite, and that the information for these sources is entered correctly in your library, select "Unlink Citations" (the icon is a broken chain: ). This action is irreversible so do not unlink until you are done citing.
  4. Now your citations have been converted to regular text, and you can go through your document and edit them as necessary.

Even if you aren't editing your citations, you should unlink them when you have finished the document in order to preserve your work as is.