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Zotero: PubMed

Easily generate bibliographies (as well as in-text citations and footnotes) with easy-to-use word processor plugins

Import PubMed Citations with Zotero for Firefox, a Firefox extension

The most easiest way to use Zotero with PubMed is through the Zotero/Firefox integration option.  Zotero embeds itself as an add on to Firefox. Once installed you will see a Zotero icon in the status bar in the right bottom corner of your Firefox browser window. Clicking on this button will open up the Zotero pane.

You will see a yellow folder in the status bar of your browser when you search PubMed using the Firefox broswer. Click on the yellow folder icon in the address bar. This will open up a pop up window. Zotero recognizes the citations from your PubMed search. Select the citations you wish to download in the Zotero pop up window and then click "OK." Your citations will be added to your Zotero Library. Tip: The citations will be automatically downloaded into whatever folder you have preselected.

export to zotero

Zotero is able to retrieve your PubMed citations, but not the full text pdf of the articles. You will need to download these separately, and add the pdf's to your library.

Want to learn more about Zotero? See our Zotero LibGuide.

Add citations using the PMID

If you already have a list of PubMed references and need a shortcut to get them into your Zotero Library, you can quickly add them to Zotero if you have the PMID (PubMed identifier). Every record in PubMed has a PMID, which is kind of like a social security number in the sense that it is unique. Click on the magic wand symbol in Zotero and enter the PMID number from PubMed. Zotero will retrieve the citation from Pubmed automatically.

Add PMID to Zotero