Pull export

You can fetch your bibliography on the url http://127.0.0.1:23119/better-bibtex/collection?[collectionID].[format] 1. You can get this URL for a group, library or collection by right-clicking it and selecting Download Better BibTeX export...

You can add options to the export as URL parameters:

  • &exportNotes=[true|false]
  • &useJournalAbbreviation=[true|false]

You can fetch your library as part of your build, using something like curl from your Makefile, or with a BibLaTeX remote statement like

\addbibresource[location=remote]{http://127.0.0.1:23119/better-bibtex/collection?/0/8CV58ZVD.biblatex}

format can be:

  • biblatex for BibLaTeX
  • bibtex for BibTeX
  • json or csljson for CSL-JSON
  • yaml, yml or cslyaml for CSL-JSON in YAML format
  • jzon for BetterBibTeX JSON debug format
  • the value of translatorID taken from the header of any existing Zotero translator to get an export in that translator format

Pull export will only work if you are compiling your document on the same system your Zotero client with BBT runs on. Technically it can be made to work for pulling from other systems, but it’s even more arcane to set up than git support.

Note that as of Zotero 5.0.71, access to this URL will no longer work from the browser for security reasons; curl and other programmatic access will work.


  1. Replace portnumber 23119 with 24119 for Juris-M. ↩︎