Notero

Notero is a Zotero plugin for syncing items and notes into Notion. To use it:

1. 📔 Configure your Notion database.
2. 💾 Install the Notero plugin into Zotero.
3. 📁 Choose your Zotero collections to monitor.
4. 📝 Add or update items in your collections.
5. 🔄 Watch your items sync into Notion!

Concept by @arhoff 👩🏻‍🔬 | Built with 💜 by @dvanoni

Table of Contents

• Why Use Notero?
• How Notero Works
• Installation and Setup
• Usage Guides
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Example Notion Databases
• Development

Why Use Notero?

• Integrate your reference manager, task list, reading notes, analytical tables, and drafts in one location.
• Easily link to references when writing in Notion.
• Create custom views to filter and sort large reference lists by project, tag, author, etc.
• Backlinks make it easy to locate any of the notes and drafts that mention a reference.
• Link references to entries in other databases, such as projects, tasks, manuscripts in your publication pipeline, publishing outlets, etc.

How Notero Works

The Notero plugin watches for Zotero items being added to or modified within any collections that you specify in the Notero preferences. Whenever an item is added or modified, Notero does a few things:

• Save a page with the Zotero item's properties (title, authors, etc.) into the Notion database specified in Notero preferences.
• Add a notion tag to the Zotero item.
• Add an attachment to the Zotero item that links to the page in Notion.

In addition to providing a convenient way to open a Notion page from Zotero, the link attachment also serves as a reference for Notero so that it can update the corresponding Notion page for a given Zotero item.

Syncing Items

By default, Notero will sync items in your monitored collections whenever they are modified. You can disable this functionality by unchecking the Sync when items are modified option in the Notero preferences.

You can also sync items from the collection or item context menus (right-click):

• To sync all items in a collection, open the context menu for the collection and select Sync Items to Notion.
• To sync one item or multiple items, select the item(s) in the main pane, open the context menu, and select Sync to Notion.

Note

To prevent the "sync on modify" functionality from saving to Notion multiple times, Notero does not notify Zotero when the tag and link attachment are added to an item. This means they may not appear in Zotero immediately, and you may need to navigate to a different item and back to make them appear.

Syncing Notes and PDF Annotations

Zotero notes associated with an item can be synced into Notion as content of the corresponding page for that item. As with regular items, you can manually sync notes using the Sync to Notion option in the context menu.

Automatic syncing of notes can be enabled via the Sync notes option in the Notero preferences. When enabled, notes will automatically sync whenever they are modified. Additionally, when a regular item is synced, all of its notes will also sync if they have not already.

To sync annotations (notes and highlights) from a PDF, you'll first need to extract them into a Zotero note:

1. Select an item or PDF, open the context menu, and select Add Note from Annotations.
2. If desired, enable highlight colors from the menu at the top-right of the note panel.

Example of creating a note from PDF annotations

CleanShot.2023-07-26.at.20.41.32-converted.mp4

Installation and Setup

Using Notero requires setting up a Notion database, connecting it to Notero, and installing the Notero plugin in Zotero. Detailed setup instructions are below.

Configure Notion

1. Create the Notion database that you would like to sync Zotero items into.

   See examples below that you can duplicate into your Notion workspace.

2. Create a Notion internal integration at https://www.notion.com/my-integrations and enable all of the "content capabilities."

   Example of integration capabilities settings

   

3. Take note of the "internal integration secret" from the previous step.

4. Give your integration access to your database.

   From the Notion developer docs:

   1. Go to the database page in your workspace.
   2. Click on the ••• More menu in the top-right corner of the page.
   3. Scroll down to and click Connect to.
   4. Search for and select your integration in the Search for connections... menu.

   Example of connection settings from the Notion documentation

   

5. Configure the database properties as desired. See the database properties section below for more details.

Notion Database Properties

Notero can sync data for the properties listed below. The only property required by Notero is one with the Title property type. The other properties are optional, so you can use only the ones that suit your needs.

The Title property can be named something other than Name as long as it does not conflict with any of the other property names. The name and type of the other properties must be configured exactly as specified here. Note that property names are case-sensitive, so the capitalization must match exactly.

Support for customizing properties is planned for the future; see issue #355.

Property Name	Property Type	Notes
Name	Title	Format configurable via the Notion Page Title option in Notero preferences
Abstract	Text
Authors	Text
Citation Key	Text	Requires Better BibTeX
Collections	Multi-select
Date	Text
Date Added	Date
Date Modified	Date
DOI	URL
Editors	Text
Extra	Text
File Path	Text
Full Citation	Text	Format based on the Zotero setting for Export → Quick Copy → Item Format
In-Text Citation	Text	Format based on the Zotero setting for Export → Quick Copy → Item Format
Item Type	Select
Place	Text
Proceedings Title	Text
Publication	Text
Series Title	Text
Short Title	Text
Tags	Multi-select
Title	Text
URL	URL
Year	Number
Zotero URI	URL	Opens items in web library if signed in to Zotero

Install and Configure Notero Plugin

Important

• The latest release of Notero requires Zotero 7.0 or above.
• Support for Zotero 6.0.27 and above is available in Notero v0.5.17.
• See the changelog for all release notes.

1. Download the latest release of the .xpi file.
   • Note for Firefox users: You'll need to right-click the above download link and choose Save Link As... in order to properly download the file.
   • If the above download link does not work, you can download the .xpi file from the Assets section of the latest release page.
2. Open the Zotero Plugins Manager via the Tools → Plugins menu item.
3. Install the .xpi file by either:
   • dragging and dropping it into the Plugins Manager window or
   • selecting it using the Install Plugin From File... option in the gear menu in the top-right corner of the window
4. Open the Notero preferences from the Tools → Notero Preferences... menu item, and enter the required preferences.
   • Note for Zotero 7 users: The Notero preferences have moved into a section in the main Zotero preferences window.

Usage Guides

For more visual guides of setting up and using Notero, see the following resources made by wonderful members of the community.

Note

Some aspects of these resources may be out of date, so be sure to refer to this README for the latest information.

• Using Notion and Zotero to build a literature tracker (blog post) by Jewel Johnson
• How To Sync Zotero → Notion // Research Paper Workflow (2023 Tutorial) (video) by Holly Jane
• Smart notetaking by starting with integrating Zotero and Notion: A first step (video) by Dr. Jingjing Lin

If you'd like to share how you use Notero and want to be listed here, please feel free to submit a PR or contact me!

Frequently Asked Questions

How to sync from Notion back into Zotero

Bidirectional sync between Notion and Zotero, while desirable, falls outside the scope of this plugin. Implementing this functionality would require developing a separate hosted service that could both listen for Notion webhooks and interact with the Zotero API to propagate changes. While technically feasible as a standalone project, this capability is not part of Notero's functionality.

Notion's current webhook actions also impose some limitations that make this less practical:

• Webhook actions are only available to Notion users on paid plans.
• Actions are only triggered when editing page properties but not page content.

How to sync attached files into Notion

There currently isn't a good way to sync files or link to local files due to the following limitations with Notion:

• The Notion API does not currently support uploading files.
• Notion only supports http: and https: URLs, so it's not possible to link directly to the file using a file: URL.

For now, the best workarounds are:

• Use the File Path property to point you to the location of the local file.
• If you sync your files into your Zotero account, you can open the Zotero web interface from the Zotero URI property and then open the file from there.

How to bulk sync existing items

To sync multiple items that are already in a monitored collection, you can do so from the collection or item context menus. See the Syncing Items section above.

How to fix Notion API errors

Could not find database

If you receive the following error:

APIResponseError: Could not find database with ID: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

This most likely means you have not given Notero access to your Notion database. Ensure you follow all the steps from the Configure Notion section. Clicking the ••• button in the top-right corner of your database should show a connection for the integration you've created for Notero.

Example of connection settings

Can't update a page that is archived

If you receive the following error:

APIResponseError: Can't update a page that is archived. You must unarchive the page before updating.

This can happen when Notero tries to sync an item that already had a Notion page created for it from a previous sync, but that page has since been deleted. (Note that deleting a Notion page moves it into the trash, and the Notion API refers to this as "archived.")

As described in the How Notero Works section, Notero associates Zotero items with Notion pages through a link named Notion attached to the item. To resolve the issue, delete this link attachment on the offending item(s) and then perform the sync again.

Not a property that exists

If you receive the following error:

APIResponseError: property is not a property that exists

This can happen if you previously synced items into one Notion database and then change your Notero preferences to specify a different database. Notero may be trying to update pages in the old database instead of creating pages in the new database, and this error can occur if different properties were configured in the different databases.

To solve this, you should delete the old database in Notion and then permanently delete it from the Trash in Notion.

Example Notion Databases

We provide some example Notion databases that have been configured with all the properties synced by Notero.

Once you've opened one of the examples, click the Duplicate button in the top-right corner of the page to duplicate it into your Notion workspace.

Basic Example

An empty database that contains only the properties synced by Notero. Useful if you want to start from scratch and customize it yourself.

Advanced Example

A database with multiple views and some sample entries. See below for descriptions of how you can use the different views.

Bibliographic Info Table View

• Table view enables easy editing of entries.
• Easily navigate to the original source by clicking on the DOI or URL property.
  • DOIs for books may need to be copy & pasted manually from the Extra field in Zotero.
• Click on the Zotero URI property to view/edit the entry in Zotero or to export the bibliography entry in a different citation style.

Reading Status Board View

• Keep track of promising references you need to locate, books and articles you requested via interlibrary loan, and works that are relevant enough to warrant taking in-depth notes or writing a memo.

Literature Review Table View

• Quickly analyze and compare attributes of literature you are reviewing (e.g., theoretical framework, sample, methods used, key findings, etc.)
• Easily link to other works using the Related References property (e.g., articles in the same special issue, book chapters in the same edited book, studies and commentary that respond to or extend other works).

Books Gallery View

• Add a cover image (e.g., right click → copy image address from Amazon).
• Keep track of which books you own, borrow, and lend to others.
  • Add due dates and reminders for library books and interlibrary loans.

Development

Notero was scaffolded with generator-zotero-plugin and uses build scripts heavily inspired by zotero-plugin. Many thanks to @retorquere for creating these.

Local Setup

The steps below are based on the Zotero Plugin Development documentation and should allow you to build and run Notero yourself.

1. To avoid any potential damage to your default Zotero profile, you can create a new profile for development purposes.

2. Create a file named zotero.config.json that will contain the config options used to start Zotero. See zotero.config.example.json for an example file that has descriptions of all available config options.

3. Install dependencies:

   npm ci
   

4. Build Notero and start Zotero with the plugin installed:

   npm start
   

   Alternatively, you can start your desired beta version of Zotero:

   npm run start-beta
   

   The start script performs a number of steps:

   1. Execute npm run build to build the plugin into the build directory.

   2. If defined, run the scripts.prestart command specified in zotero.config.json.

   3. Write a file containing the absolute path to the build directory into the extensions directory in the Zotero profile directory.

   4. Remove the extensions.lastAppBuildId and extensions.lastAppVersion lines from prefs.js in the Zotero profile directory.

   5. Start Zotero with the profile specified in zotero.config.json and the following command line arguments:

      -purgecaches -ZoteroDebugText -jsdebugger -datadir profile
      

   6. If defined, run the scripts.poststart command specified in zotero.config.json, providing it with a ZOTERO_PID environment variable.

Releasing a New Version

Releases are performed via GitHub Actions. The release workflow defines the following jobs:

release-please

This job uses the release-please action to create release PRs when new user-facing commits are pushed to the main branch. A release PR will bump the package version and update the changelog. When the PR is merged, this job then creates a new version tag and GitHub release.

publish-artifacts

This job runs when a new release is created by the release-please job. It builds the .xpi file and publishes it to the release. It also generates an updated manifest file and publishes it to the release release.