Better BibTeX for Zotero

Better BibTeX (BBT) is an extension for Zotero and (in principle) Juris-M that makes it easier to manage bibliographic data, especially for people authoring documents using text-based toolchains (e.g. based on LaTeX / Markdown).

Notice

With the advent of Zotero 8, items have a Zotero-native citation key field. This has replaced the BBT citation key field.

This has caused a few somewhat disruptive changes:

  • Zotero 7 is no longer supported. BBT 8.0.25 still works on 7.0.32, but will not receive further updates.
  • The citation key no longer sits at the top of the item pane. It now sits somewhere in the middle and you may have to scroll to see it. This placement is not under my control
  • Zotero will have moved all pinned keys out of the extra field into the native field
  • The concept of pinning keys is gone; keys are always pinned now. Zotero doesn’t have a place I can store whether a key is pinned or not.
  • The Zotero-native citation keys are stored in another place than the BBT citation keys. If you have no Zotero-native citation keys yet, BBT will silently migrate them to there. If you do have Zotero-native citation keys, and a migration would overwrite them, you will be offered a windows with the choice on how to migrate your citation keys from the BBT storage to the Zotero storage.
  • I have enabled auto-pin (what really is auto-fill now) even you had it turned off. You can still turn it back off if you don’t want this.
  • Integrations that read the BBT database directly will have to read the Zotero database instead.

Upside to all of this is that keys will sync.

Re-do migration

If key migration appears to have failed, YOUR CITATION KEYS ARE SAFE.

Make sure you are on the latest version. For the first 5 minutes after BBT start, the Help menu will have an option Re-do BBT citation key migration. Click that, generate a debug log from the Help menu, then open an issue on github noting the debug log ID.

It is a known problem that read-only groups do not have citation keys. I am working on a fix

Features

Facilities for generating citation keys

  • Automatically generate citation keys without key clashes! Generate citation keys that take into account existing keys in your library even when they are not part of the items you export. Prevent random breakage!
  • Generate citation keys based on contents of your items using citekey formulas.
  • Set your own, stable citation keys, drag and drop LaTeX citations, add other custom BibLaTeX fields.

Conversion between formats and encodings

  • Zotero does all its work in UTF-8 Unicode, which is absolutely the right thing to do. Unfortunately, for those shackled to BibTeX and who cannot (yet) move to BibLaTeX, unicode is a major PITA. Also, Zotero supports some simple HTML markup in your items that Bib(La)TeX won’t understand.

  • BBT will convert from/to HTML/LaTeX:

    • <i>...</i>⇔\emph{...}/\mkbibemph{...}/\textit{...}
    • <b>...</b>⇔\textbf{...}
    • <sup>...</sup>⇔\textsuperscript{...} and <sub>...</sub>⇔\textsubscript{...}.

    More can be added on request.

    BBT contains a comprehensive list of LaTeX constructs, so stuff like \"{o} or \"o will be converted to their unicode equivalents on import (e.g., \"{o} to ö), and their unicode equivalents back to \"{o} if you have that option enabled (but you don’t have to if you use BibLaTeX, which has fairly good Unicode support).

    If you need literal LaTeX in your export: surround it with <script>…</script> (or <pre>…</pre>, which do the same) markers.

Facilities for exporting data from Zotero

  • Highly customized exports.
  • Fixes date field exports: export dates like ‘forthcoming’ as ‘forthcoming’ instead of empty, but normalize valid dates to unambiguous international format.
  • Auto export of collections or entire libraries when they change.
  • Pull export from the embedded webserver.
  • Automatic journal abbreviation.

Getting started

To get started, read the installation instructions.

How does it work ?

At its core, BBT behaves like any Zotero import/export module; anywhere you can export or import bibliography items in Zotero, you’ll find Better X listed among the choices.

If nothing else, you could keep your existing workflow as-is, and just enjoy the improved LaTeX ↔ unicode translation on import and export and more accurate field mapping.

Better BibTeX works from BibTeXing and Tame the BeaST for BibTeX, and The Biblatex Package for BibLaTeX, but since there isn’t really a definitive manual for either format that is universally followed by Bib(La)TeX editors/processors, I’m pragmatic about implementing what works.

Got problems? We got fixes!

If you have any questions on BBT’s use, do not hesitate to file a GitHub issue and ask for help.

If you’re reporting a bug in BBT, please take a moment to glance through the support request guidelines; it will make sure I get your problem fixed as quick as possible. Clear bug reports commonly have really short time-to-fix, so if you report something, stick around – it may be done as you wait.

The support request guidelines are very detailed, perhaps to the point of being off-putting, but please do not fret; these guidelines simply express my ideal bug submission. I of course prefer very clearly documented issue reports over fuzzy ones, but I prefer fuzzy ones over missed ones.