Reference management software: Zotero 7

Inserting a footnote

To insert a footnote, place the cursor where you would like the citation to appear in the document. Choose Add/Edit Citation from the Zotero tab in Word. Find the item you want by typing the author's name in the red dialog box that comes up. When you press Enter, Zotero automatically inserts a footnote with the chosen item. You can also insert multiple items by writing them one after the other in the dialogue box.

Note that the above only works if you are using a footnote style. Select a footnote style in Document Preferences, e.g., Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (full note). If it is not clear from the name of the style whether it is a footnote style, try to find the style at https://editor.citationstyles.org/ → Search by name > View style; the type of style is listed below Citation format.

Writing text in the footnote

To add text before the item cited in a footnote, use the Prefix field. Find this field by clicking on Add/Edit Citation and then clicking an item in the citation dialog box. Text intended to follow the item can be added in the Suffix field. In this way, all text in the footnote is written in the citation dialog box.

This method is best suited for short comments which do not contain much text beyond the cited items. The method allows Zotero to automatically transform the entire footnote into an in-text parenthesis if you choose to switch from a footnote style to a parenthetical style. There are, however, a couple of potential issues:

• In many reference styles, sources are separated by a semicolon, which may not be compatible with the grammar of the footnote text (e.g., "[item A]; and [item B]"). The separating mark cannot be replaced by a blank space by using the prefix and suffix fields.
• When editing the footnote text, it may be difficult to get an overview of the contents in the prefix and suffix fields, especially if the text is long.
• The text in the prefix and suffix fields cannot be formatted in Word; instead, html tags must be used in the fields, e.g., "<i>cf.</i>" for an italicised "cf.".

Inserting a footnote

First insert a footnote manually, using the function References > Insert footnote (or short command Ctrl + Alt + F). Then place the cursor in the footnote at the bottom of the page, click Add/Edit Citation, and insert the cited item as usual.

Writing text in the footnote

You can add text in the footnote by typing it in the document outside the grey field which contains the citation. Add a new item in the same footnote, separated from the first by text, by placing the cursor where you want the new item and clicking Add/Edit Citation.

This method is best suited to texts with longer footnotes that have more discussion. However, there are some disadvantages:

• Zotero will not be able to transform the footnotes to in-text brackets (parentheses) if you switch to a parenthetic reference style.
• You must never write in the grey field in the document, which contains the citation! This will give you an error code when updating the citations, and you will be asked whether to discard your manually inserted text or refrain from updating the citation in the future (including changes to the reference style, changes in the item metadata etc.). See FAQ.
• In many reference styles, the footnotes automatically end with a full stop, which may not be compatible with the grammar of the footnote text (e.g., "Ohlmarks, Heimdalls Horn. argues"). This problem can be avoided by removing the full stop by editing the reference style (see Finding new styles...). In this case, you will have to add a full stop at the end of each footnote manually.