When I first looked at Zotero for iPad, I was a little disappointed because there was no export function. That is now different.
In my first look at the Zotero iPad Beta, I was somewhat disillusioned: no possibility to create a bibliography. So Zotero on the iPad was not much more than a viewer for my database.
So, I was all the more delighted a few days ago when I noticed a new Zotero Beta in TestFlight that now also supports the creation and export of bibliographies. Yay! Just remember that this is a beta – everything is in flux!
How do I like the export function? It’s pretty good, even if it’s a bit hidden behind the share sheet. You simply select the entries you want to appear in the bibliography and then click on the share sheet.
There you can set four things: the citation style, the language, the export mode (as citation or bibliography) and the export method (to the clipboard or as HTML file).
The following short video illustrates the process:
Citation export is now also possible
And there is a second new function. Individual entries can also be exported as citations. All you have to do is long press on an entry to open the context menu. In the first submenu, you can copy the title, add a page number and select whether the author should be included. Here I would like to be able to customise the citation more, as it is of little use to me. In the body text, I cite according to the scheme author year: page number. I can’t do that at the moment. But I hope that something will happen here in the further course of the beta. Here again is a short video:
So you can see that Zotero for the iPad is still in an active development process and big features can still be added. With the bibliography function, the app is much more serious, as you can now use at least the basic functions of a literature management system: Add entries, organise them in projects, add notes and tags as well as the source file, and export everything as a citation or bibliography at the end. Very good, Zotero!