[Feature] Full support of bibliography and citations

[parrenin]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug? Feature What is the current behavior? OnlyOffice does not support the Zotero bibliography manager. If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce and if possible a minimal demo of the problem.

What is the expected behavior? OnlyOffice should support the Zotero bibliography manager, to be successful in the academic world. The Zotero people are apparently not interested to work on this: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/79081/zotero-pluggin-for-onlyoffice Which versions of DesktopEditors, and which OS are affected by this issue? Did this work in previous versions of DesktopEditors? All versions.

[Rita-Bubnova]

Hello, @parrenin. Thank you for your enhancement. I created an issue 43716 to discuss it with our team.

[ibnpetr]

@parrenin

OnlyOffice does not support the Zotero bibliography manager.

It does, please follow the link to find an example of how such plugin should work.

[parrenin]

@ibnpetr, good to know such plugin is in the work. So, if I understand correctly, this is still not ready yet, is it? Or is there a documentation somewhere to explain how to use it? Thanks.

[parrenin]

I experimented the new Zotero plugin in 5.5.3. From what I understand, it only allows to fetch references in the Zotero database and to format them following a style. It is something I could do already with Zotero itself, you can select references in your database and export a formatted bibliography. So right now, although I appreciate that some work has been done to integrate Zotero, the plugin is useless for me. I still need to use Word to format the bibliography. What I would really is a way to cite references within the document, which would be stored inside the .docx, and automatically format a bibliography, as is done by the Zotero Word and LibreOffice integration plugin.

[menelic]

Full zotero support as in Google Docs is key for Only Office to offer a true FOSS replacement of corporate cloud and collaboration infrastructures. The ability to draw from the zotero database for inline source citations that are automatically appended to the ordered and pre- formatted aoutogenerated bibliograhy is the main draw of zotero. This feature would unlock full academic collaborative writing.

[QuietOcean]

Could somebody explain what steps might be required so that the Zotero plugin could be fully functional (with citation and Webdav support), much like LibreOffice? I cannot help to feel that we are getting very close... but maybe I am wrong.

[VEZY]

Full zotero support as in Google Docs is key for Only Office to offer a true FOSS replacement of corporate cloud and collaboration infrastructures. The ability to draw from the zotero database for inline source citations that are automatically appended to the ordered and pre- formatted aoutogenerated bibliograhy is the main draw of zotero. This feature would unlock full academic collaborative writing.

I too am only waiting for a better integration of Zotero to completely switch to OnlyOffice. I think it is the only drawback of this suite at the moment. And I'm sure a lot of academics would switch too if it was possible to have the References listed at the end of the document as in MS Word, and manage them after addition (e.g. remove, change the citation style...).

[Nationalgeographic]

Full zotero support as in Google Docs is key for Only Office to offer a true FOSS replacement of corporate cloud and collaboration infrastructures. The ability to draw from the zotero database for inline source citations that are automatically appended to the ordered and pre- formatted aoutogenerated bibliograhy is the main draw of zotero. This feature would unlock full academic collaborative writing.

I too am only waiting for a better integration of Zotero to completely switch to OnlyOffice. I think it is the only drawback of this suite at the moment. And I'm sure a lot of academics would switch too if it was possible to have the References listed at the end of the document as in MS Word, and manage them after addition (e.g. remove, change the citation style...).

Yes. Would also completely switch to OnlyOffice, when Zotero is integrated the way it should (like in Word(!) or LibreOffice).To me the key features are the citation (mainly!) and the automated bibliography, both features are essential. And I do not need to use the online database with this plugin, since there's a desktop Zotero client/database which is interacting with the online database. Also it is not allowed to use customized citation styles.

[TS-CUBED]

Second that.

Full Zotero integration would be the one thing that would make me switch all my students over to OnlyOffice

[kbundg]

Lets have it then! :+1:

[shu0406]

I think the option "insert citation" additionally to "insert bibliography" would be a first step.

[dagdrommer]

I agree with the others. The lack of a well integrated Citation-Manager, especially Zotero, discourages the academic world from switching to OnlyOffice.

[ShockwaveNN]

So this issue is a little mess from different problems so I'll clarify this

Currently, we got issue 50849 in our private issue tracker for the ability to add Zotero citations and full bibliography support. Right now there is not a lot of traction in implementing it, but you can always contact sales@onlyoffice.com and discuss our priorities

Issue 43716 mentioned earlier was about Making plugin with some feature set, so it was closed as soon as the plugin was released I'll rename this issue to be more clear

[Rosmaninho]

This feature would be essential for OnlyOffice maybe to even replace LibreOffice as the premier open-source office suite IMO. It needs fully functional citation manager plugins. And Zotero is the leading open-source citation manager. You guys should approach the Zotero devs now that they got Zotero 6 out of the way.

[dekipantelija]

I must admit it is frustrating that none of the 3 available citation helpers are available in desktop editor. I do have an online version available with Infomaniak, but they won't allow inclusion of plugins. As much as i am ok paying the 150 to get to your servers, i still feel weird paying that amount to get one feature more.

[ShockwaveNN]

@dekipantelija Hi, your message seems unrelated to OP issue (about bibliography and citation)

Zotero is not included by default in DesktopEditors, but can be installed via this instruction in README

If you got any troubles not related to bibliography/citation feature - please create a new issue

[pcscp]

Just adding a +1 for this issue, without proper support for zotero there is no possibility to switch to onlyoffice

[T-Herrmann-WI]

Yes the citations is the baseline for usage of this Zotero plugin.

[tvrbanec]

I attend to completely switch to OnlyOffice when the Zotero plugin gets full integration in it. And that would be the last removed obstacle to completely stopping using Windows OS. When writing academic articles, I must use virtual Windows because of the need for Word (LibreOffice Writer is very good, but it is not compatible enough with Word).

[jdpipe]

Great work on this plugin so far. However adding support for citations is an essential next step before this plugin is genuinely useful for academic writing. May I suggest that the README for this plugin more explicitly mention this shortcoming -- it's basically still a work in progress -- as it may help to attract the needed contributions.

[fagoliveira]

I came here to add up to the pile of comments requesting support for citations. Citing and referencing works is an important part of writing academic manuscripts, and the Zotero plugin for OnlyOffice, as it currently stands, does not allow it. Scientists that wish to transition to a free and open-source alternative to Microsoft Office can't switch to OnlyOffice as long as the Zotero plugin is lacking a citation feature. It's a real shame because the other Office alternatives -- Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, even Google Docs! -- have this feature implemented.

Please make this happen, OnlyOffice team. We really want to change to your software!

[giovanna-deluca]

Trying to put MS Word aside for my academic activity, I installed OnlyOffice and the Zotero plugin. I just landed here while looking for a way to add in-text citations. Are there still no solutions to this lacking feature? This is forcing me to abandon the idea of using OnlyOffice.

[tvrbanec]

Olyoffice manufacturers are not serious at all. They do not understand that what professors do and what and how we teach students, directly influence what students will use later in life and work. As if they did not want to spread their user base.

[Rosmaninho]

Just came back to try the plugin and still no way to add citations with Zotero plugin. It is a shame. Such a shame. Even GDocs has this. This should also be available with Mendeley and Bibtex, otherwise these plugins are non-functional. they only have 50% of required functionality for end users! OnlyOffice beats LibO in every other regard except this. C'mon devs...

[MHollander0012]

Just wanted to know if any more progress has been made on this front. I'm especially interested in the plugin for the 'Desktop Editors' version.

[shu0406]

I got the information by onlyoffice that there soon will be a new beta version of the plugin. "methods needed for the plugin were only added in version 7.3. which was released recently". So I hope that version will support full functionality!

[MHollander0012]

I got the information by onlyoffice that there soon will be a new beta version of the plugin. "methods needed for the plugin were only added in version 7.3. which was released recently". So I hope that version will support full functionality!

@shu0406 Where can I find the beta version?

[shu0406]

finally...

https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2023/03/meet-updated-zotero-plugin/

[MHollander0012]

finally...

https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2023/03/meet-updated-zotero-plugin/

Does this new update include in-text citations?

[parrenin]

Does this new update include in-text citations?

I just tested the new plugin, and from what I understand, it still does not include in-text citations. So it is clearly a step forward, but still not enough for my own use.

[jdpipe]

Thanks! This plugin has improved greatly now. You can add citations and insert a bibliography. Two issues that I noticed:

1. You can't choose 'in-text' citations (equivalent to \citep and \citet in Latex), so usage is somewhat limited still. Also, numerical citations don't come with any formatting (eg [1], superscript 1, superscript [1], etc).
2. You can't select which Zotero library you want to connect to. It connects to 'My Library' by default, and I can't see any way to connect my document to a different library.

It's a big improvement, and could start to be used now, albeit with some significant limitations.

Also, I note that the process of installing it is a bit annoying. You have to zip up your own plugin, and it is not in fact included with Onlyoffice 7.3.3 as mentioned somewhere.

[VladimirProkofiev52]

Hello! @jdpipe, @parrenin., When you say "You can't select 'in text'", do you want citations/bibliographies to have the same formatting as your text? By formatting, I mean font style, size, and etc.

[sith-on-mars]

The current version requires a Zotero account. I wish in the future the plugin can support offline use.

[tvrbanec]

The current version requires a Zotero account. I wish in the future the plugin can support offline use.

That is not real and is not working that way in either OS or Office. But the plugin is just not working fully and is not usable at all.

[leighss]

Yes, we need the same functionality as LibreOffice and Softmaker TextMaker Everything else is there (including equation editor which Softmaker doesnt have in Linux) I agree completely with @tvrbanec - you wouldnt believe the amount of students I have recommended Zotero too (although the uni gives them software provided free (free while they are studying ....) from The Pusher M$