Create folders
Create folders and sub-folders in Zotero to organise your materials. These are called collections.
- To create a new collection, go to the folder icon on the far left and click to add. Alternatively, create a new folder by right-clicking in the Library panel and select 'Create new collection'. Name the collection in the pop up box.
- You can create collections within collections, or sub folders. To add a folder within an existing collection, right click on the folder and select 'New Sub collection' and type in a name.
- Add items to collections by dragging and dropping them into the folder. Remove items from folders by right clicking and selecting 'Remove Item from Collection'. This will not delete the item from your library. Avoid deleting items as that will inadvertently delete the item from all collections.
- Rename collections or subfolders at anytime by right clicking on a folder and selecting 'Rename Collection'.
Add tags
Add custom tags to items in your library and use them to quickly retrieve related items. For example for keywords/subject headings, or actions to carry out, like 'to read'.
To view, add and remove tags, select an item in your library and click on the Tags tab. Items downloaded from a database or catalogue may come with tags already attached. To hide these automatic tags right-click the coloured squares in the tags pane and deselect automatic tags. You can add your own tags or delete existing tags (orange boxes).
Display items by tag
The tag cloud is displayed in the panel below the Collection folders (see red box). If you have a collection folder selected, this panel will only display the tags within that collection.
Clicking on a tag will display all items tagged with that term. You can choose more than one tag to show items with that combination of tags.
You can colour code your tags, this will add a coloured square to the item in the middle panel (see green squares).
Bulk tagging
To tag many items at once, select the records in the middle panel and drag the highlighted records on to the tag in the left tag window.
Annotations and Notes
The Notes field allows you to add personal notes for your records. Each item may have multiple separate notes. Notes in Zotero can be searched, tagged and exported into reports, so they are a useful way to organise your research.
To add a note, select an item and click the Notes tab on the right hand panel. Click the Add button. Edit the note within this panel, or in a new window. Notes fields allow text formatting, highlighting and hyperlinking.
You can also add a note from Zotero's PDF reader. Open the PDF in Zotero's PDF reader by double clicking the attachment in your Zotero library. Notes can be added using the + icon in the far right pane of the reader.
Notes can also be created from annotations to the PDF. To annotate a PDF, use the highlighter icon at the top of the PDF to highlight a passage. The highlighted text will appear as an annotation in the far left pane. To make the annotation a note, you can drag the highlighted text from the PDF into an existing or new note, or from the Item Notes pane use the + icon and select Add Item Note from Annotations.
For further information and screenshot instructions, refer to Zotero - Using and Adding Notes page via Re:cite.