Zotero to Excel and Complex Searches of Zotero Database
Thanks to Jason Puckett, I’ve become a huge fan of Zotero.
So I’d collected a cast number of citations in Zotero, but needed to export them in a custom format to a .csv if I wanted to upload them into another database. I was also a little put-off that Zotero’s search wasn’t more powerful (that’s just me being picky- Zotero is awesome and anyone who says otherwise will get an earful from me).
A little Googling led me to this post by Royce Kimmons that discusses how to query Zotero’s SQLite database.
(This post is largely a short summary of Mr. Kimmons’- but it is such a neat trick that I wanted to share it.)
Zotero’s database is SQLite. For me, the database was located here:
C:\Users\[UserID]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random string].default\zotero\zotero.sqlite
In your OS, it may be elsewhere. According to Zotero’s support documentation, ”[t]he quickest and most reliable way to find your Zotero data directory is through the “Show Data Directory” button in the Advanced tab of your Zotero window.”
Once you find it, COPY it somewhere else to work with it. Don’t monkey with your original database.
Then you need a tool for working with the copied database. Kimmons recommends SQLite Manager, a Firefox plugin, but I ended up using SQLiteStudio (free, portable application that requires no installation) and found it much more pleasant to work with.
Even knowing next to nothing about Zotero’s data model, I could modify Kimmons’ query to get just the data I wanted, exactly how I wanted it.
Another option is to export the SQLite as SQL and run your searches using your favorite database tool (even MS Access).
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