How to review, copy, and troubleshoot references
Use the References Sidebar, change one note's citation presentation, copy entries, and resolve reference errors.
Use this guide to inspect an active note's references and correct entries that ZotLit cannot resolve or format.
Review the references
Open the References Sidebar
Open the Markdown note you want to review. Run:
ZotLit: Open referencesThe sidebar follows the active note. A formatted list uses the selected CSL style and bibliography order.
Find each citation occurrence
Select the chevron at the right of an entry. ZotLit moves the editor to that entry's next occurrence.
Select it again to cycle through later occurrences. The action returns to the first occurrence after the last one.
Open the related item
Hover the entry or focus it with the keyboard to reveal its row actions.
- Open literature note opens the note. ZotLit creates it first when the Zotero item has no Literature Note.
- Open in Zotero selects the item in Zotero.
- Open attachment in Zotero opens its attachment. When several attachments exist, ZotLit opens a selection menu.
An attachment action appears only when the item has an attachment to open.
Inspect a citation from the editor
Under Settings > ZotLit > Citations > Hover, set Hover action to Citation popover.
Hover a formatted citation. The popover shows each cited item's complete bibliography entry and the same Literature Note, Zotero, and attachment actions.
Use Require modifier key to control hover separately for Source mode, Live Preview, and reading view.
Change one note's presentation
Open the note, then run:
ZotLit: Set citation presentationYou can also select Set citation presentation from the active note's More options menu.
- Select a Citation and references style installed in Zotero, or keep the vault style.
- Enter a Document language, such as
en-US,de, orzh-CN. - Select Save.
The style applies to this note's in-text citations, References Sidebar, Citation Popover, copied bibliography, and built-in export. Document language sets Pandoc lang for the complete exported document, not only its citations.
Select the reset button beside Document language. Its tooltip is Use vault citation locale and remove document language. This removes lang from the note, so citation formatting uses the vault Citation locale.
Copy references
Copy the complete bibliography
Select Copy bibliography in the References Sidebar toolbar. ZotLit copies the formatted entries in bibliography order, without a heading.
The clipboard contains rich text and plain text. Plain-text entries have a blank line between them.
Copy one entry
Select the text of one entry in the sidebar. Use your operating system's normal copy shortcut.
Selecting the row's chevron navigates to citation occurrences. It does not copy the entry.
Fix a disabled Copy bibliography action
Hover the disabled action to see its current reason.
| Tooltip | What to do |
|---|---|
| Open a note to copy its bibliography | Open the Markdown note whose bibliography you need. |
| The active note cites nothing to copy | Add a recognized citation to the active note. |
| Wait for the references to finish formatting | Wait for the current formatting pass to finish. |
| Bibliography formatting is unavailable | Install or restore the Pandoc engine and an available style. |
| Bibliography formatting failed | Check the engine and selected style, then retry after the sidebar refreshes. |
| Fix the reference errors to copy the bibliography | Correct every Reference Error listed in the sidebar. |
The action also becomes temporarily unavailable when the active note, style, locale, or Zotero data changes. Wait for the new bibliography to finish formatting.
Fix Reference Errors
Each Reference Error stays tied to its exact source occurrence. Use the row's chevron to open that occurrence.
| Sidebar state | Cause | Recovery |
|---|---|---|
@key matches no item in your Zotero library. | No item in Library scope has that citation key. | Correct the key, add the matching library to the scope, or assign the key to the intended item. |
@key matches multiple items in your Zotero library. | Several in-scope items have the same citation key. | Give each item a distinct key, or narrow Library scope until the key is unique. |
This link has an invalid citation fragment. | A Literature Note link has a malformed #cite: fragment. | Correct the fragment. For a page locator, use #cite:locator=33. |
{linkpath} points to an item that is no longer in your Zotero library. | The Literature Note's zotero-key no longer resolves to an item. | Restore the Zotero item or correct the Literature Note identity. |
An ambiguous row lists every matching item with its library and item key. Open literature note stays unavailable until the citation key identifies one item.
Fix presentation errors
| Banner | Recovery |
|---|---|
| This note's citation and references style is unavailable | Correct the note's zotlit-csl, install that style in Zotero, or use the vault style. |
| This note's document language is invalid | Set lang to a language tag such as de-DE, or remove the property. |
| ZotLit could not format these references | Check the selected style and Pandoc engine under Settings > ZotLit > Citations > Formatting. |
| The Pandoc engine is unavailable | Open the same settings page and repair or reinstall the engine. |
The sidebar shows a minimal list when formatted output is unavailable. Copy remains disabled until ZotLit produces a complete bibliography without Reference Errors.