LibGuides: Managing Reference Data with Zotero: Integrating Overleaf

Linking Zotero to Overleaf

Set up your Zotero account
Set up your Overleaf account
- Refer to the Fondren Overleaf Libguide for detailed setup instructions.
- Add your Rice email to your Overleaf account to get access to Rice's subscription
Link Zotero to Overleaf
- Log in to your Overleaf account at Rice University on Overleaf
- Account-> Account Settings
- Scroll down the list of Account Settings to the Reference Managers section, select the Zotero Integration link,
- Click on Link. Then follow the on-screen prompt to complete the process.

For more information, see the official Overleaf guide on How to link Zotero to your Overleaf account.

Configure to use Advanced reference search

With Rice's subscription to Overleaf, all Rice users have a Premium account, which means your projects can be configured to use advanced reference search.

Go to Project Menu
Reference search -> Reference search style -> Advanced reference search. This allows for searching directly from Zotero.
Check the Zotero library that you want to include in your reference search

Adding citations to your main.tex

New Project -> Blank Project
- Your project will only contain a main.tex file.
  - The preamble of the main.tex file only includes
    - \documentclass{article}
    - \usepackage{graphicx} % Required for inserting images
  - add \usepackage{biblatex} to the preamble of the main.tex file. This will load the BibLATEX package.
    - Use additional options to select a citation style: \usepackage[style=apa]{biblatex}
- You can use \cite{} to insert a citation. It will search the linked Zotero library.
  - Use \textcite{} and \autocite{} for APA style.
- After a citation is inserted, a message will pop up at the bottom of the application "A new reference was added to references.bib from Zotero." Meanwhile, a references.bib file is created in your project and is shown below the main.tex file.
- You will need to add the following commands to the preamble of the main.tex file. If you don't, you will receive an "undefined references" alert when compiling the text.
  - \addbibresource{references.bib}
    The command is used to specify which bib file you want to use. If you don't have \usepackage{biblatex} added in the preamble before this command, you will receive an error message "The compiler is having trouble understanding a command you have used. Check that the command is spelled correctly. If the command is part of a package, make sure you have included the package in your preamble using \usepackage{...}.".
- You will also want to add
  - \usepackage[colorlinks=true, allcolors=blue]{hyperref}
    This command loads up the hyperlink package, which automatically creates the hyperlinks from the in-text citations to the bibliography citations.
- Use \printbibliography to place your bibliography in your document.
New Project -> Sample Project
- Your project will include both main.tex and sample.bib
- You can use \cite{} to insert a citation. It will search the linked Zotero library.
- After a citation is inserted, a message will pop up at the bottom of the application "A new reference was added to sample.bib from Zotero."
New Project -> from an existing template

Refer to Getting started with BibLaTeX for more information about BibLaTex.