R Interface to 'Zotero' via Better BibTeX.

zoteR

An R interface to Zotero via the Better BibTeX add-on. zoteR lets you insert citations, fetch bibliography data, and keep bibliography files in sync with your Zotero library — all from R, with RStudio addin support.

Prerequisites

• Zotero must be installed and running
• Better BibTeX for Zotero must be installed

Installation

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pkg_install("sarcastic-scientist/zoteR")

Usage

Check connection

zt_is_running()   # TRUE if Zotero + Better BibTeX are available

Insert citations

Open the Better BibTeX cite-as-you-write picker and return a formatted citation:

# Pandoc format: [@doe2020]
zt_cite(format = "pandoc", .action = zt_insert)

# LaTeX format: \cite{doe2020}
zt_cite(format = "latex", .action = zt_insert)

Fetch bibliography data

# For specific citation keys
zt_bib(c("doe2020", "smith2019"), format = "json")

# Interactively via CAYW picker
zt_bib_cayw(format = "biblatex")

# For currently selected items in Zotero
zt_bib_selected(format = "json")

Format note:"json" (CSL-JSON) is recommended for R Markdown and Quarto documents. Other formats undergo lossy conversion when pandoc processes the bibliography.

Sync bibliography files

The primary use case is keeping a bibliography file up to date as you write. Add this to your document's YAML front matter:

bibliography: "`r zoteR::zt_write_bib('refs.json', overwrite = TRUE)`"

Every time the document knits, zt_write_bib() detects all @key citations in the file and fetches the latest data from Zotero.

To update the bibliography file without knitting:

zt_update_bib("paper.Rmd")   # reads bibliography path from YAML front matter

Detect citations

# Scan a file for pandoc-style citation keys
zt_detect_citations("paper.Rmd")

# Scan a string
zt_detect_citations_text("See [@doe2020] and @smith2019.")

Code chunks, inline R expressions, and URLs are excluded from detection to avoid false positives. To force a key to be included (e.g. cited only in a figure caption), add it to a nocite field in your YAML front matter or in an HTML comment.

Library management

zt_libraries()              # data frame of all available libraries

# Look up library ID by name (more portable than hardcoding IDs)
zt_bib(keys, library_id = zt_library_id("Group Library Name"))

Output actions

All retrieval functions accept a .action argument that controls what happens to the result:

RStudio addins

Three addins are included (accessible via Addins menu or keyboard shortcuts):

Citation format (Pandoc vs. LaTeX) is detected automatically from the active file's extension.

Package options

options(zoter.default.format = "json")

License

GPL (>= 3)