Create and open literature notes

Open an existing Literature Note or create one from its Zotero item.

Use the quick switcher

The quick switcher searches your Zotero library and opens or creates a literature note for the item you pick.

It searches every library in your library scope at once, in one relevance order. While more than one library can contribute results, each row names the library its item comes from. An empty search lists your most recently modified items first.

Open a note from a Pandoc citation

Turn on Pandoc citations and Open citations as links under Settings > ZotLit > Citations. Pandoc citations is on by default, and Open citations as links is off by default.

Type or paste a Pandoc citation such as @key or [@key] in an editor.

• In Live Preview, click the citation to open or create its Literature Note.
• In Source mode, Ctrl-click the citation key. Use Cmd-click on macOS. A plain click places the caret.
• In reading view, click the citation. A single-item citation opens its Literature Note. A multi-item citation opens a menu.

You can also place the cursor on a recognized citation and run ZotLit: Open citation key under cursor. This command uses the same two settings.

ZotLit recognizes bare keys and citation clusters alike: @key, -@key, [@key], [@key, p. 3], and multi-cite [@a; @b].

A click resolves the citation key against Zotero's native citation key field, across every library in your Library scope (set at the top of Settings > ZotLit). When a Zotero item carries that key and already has a literature note, ZotLit opens the note. When the item exists but has no literature note yet, ZotLit creates one and opens it.

If the item is not found in your Zotero library, a notice appears: "No Zotero item with citation key @{key}." If the database is unavailable, ZotLit shows "Open the Zotero database to look up citation key @{key}."

If several Zotero items carry that key, ZotLit asks which one you mean. A picker lists each item with its library and item key, and opens the one you choose. See A key that matches several items.

The four open-under-cursor commands use Open citations as links; what hovering shows follows Hover action instead. Show formatted citations does not control navigation.

Open citations as links covers Literature Note wikilinks shown as citations as well. For recognized syntax and the complete interaction model, see How in-text citation rendering and navigation work.

Find notes that cite a Literature Note

Open the Literature Note whose incoming citations you want to inspect. Run:

ZotLit: Show cited byCopy →

The Cited By Sidebar follows the active Literature Note. It groups citation occurrences by source note and shows the citation in its surrounding text.

Use the sidebar toolbar to narrow and arrange the results:

• Show search filter filters by source-note path or the shown citation context.
• Show more context expands every result from a compact excerpt to its enclosing Markdown block.
• Change sort order sorts source notes by file name, modified time, or created time, in either direction.
• Collapse results collapses or expands the visible source-note groups.

Select a citation excerpt to open its source note at that occurrence. Select Open source note on a group to open the note without targeting one occurrence. Hold Ctrl on Windows or Linux, or Command on macOS, to open either action in another pane.

Create or update notes in bulk

You can create or update literature notes for many Zotero items at once from the Zotero right-click menu. This requires the ZotLit Zotero companion plugin.

Update the entire library at once

Use this command to create or update literature notes for every item in your library at once.

Open the command palette and run:

ZotLit: Create or update all literature notesCopy →

Obsidian opens a confirmation modal that lists what will be created and what will be updated. Review the list, then confirm to start the batch.

In Zotero, right-click My Library or a group library in the sidebar. Choose ZotLit > Create or Update Literature Notes.

The Obsidian command covers every library in your Library scope (set in Settings > ZotLit). The Zotero entry covers the library you right-clicked, whatever your library scope is.

Update one collection at once

In Zotero, right-click a collection in the sidebar and choose ZotLit > Create or Update Literature Notes. Obsidian opens the same confirmation modal, scoped to that collection.

Items in nested subcollections are included, so you do not need to repeat the action on each child collection.

If the collection no longer exists in your Zotero database, Obsidian reports "Collection not found in Zotero."

Open or update a single item from Zotero

When exactly one regular item is selected in the Zotero library, the top-level context menu shows Open Literature Note in Obsidian. This creates the note if none exists, or opens the existing one. The behavior matches the quick switcher.

Update multiple items at once

How ZotLit identifies literature notes

ZotLit identifies literature notes by their zotero-key frontmatter field. For details on note identity and the managed region, see Literature notes and the managed region.

See also