Organizing content

Collections
You always see all articles by clicking on My Library. As mentioned before, click on the collection button to create collections and subcollections (How to create Collections.). To add items to collections, you need to drag and drop them. When deleting an item in a collection, the item will be removed from the collection but not from Zotero.
To delete the item from Zotero entirely, in My library right-click on the item and select Move item to bin.

Tags
In addition to collections, a handy feature for organizing your Library are Tags. Select an item and switch to the Tags tab in the right window to add as many tags as needed. The created tags are shown in the lower-left corner.

By right-clicking tags in the lower left corner, you can assign colors to specific tags. It helps to highlight critical topics (or papers you must read).

If you click on one or multiple tags in the left lower corner, all articles using the tags are selected (only items in the current collection). To get all items, click on My Library first.
By default, tags are automatically created when importing an item using your browser plugin. To disable this feature go to the settings:
`Tools – Preferences – General – Miscellaneous – 'Automatically tag items with keywords and subject headings"

Search
Zotero provides a quick search (right upper corner), to search within the Title, in all fields, or everywhere. In addition, you can use a more precise search, accessible under 'Edit – Advanced Search'.

Advanced search

You can perform more advanced searches by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of the library pane. Here you can filter items by the content of specific fields, and items will only show up if they satisfy all the criteria specified.

When you perform an advanced search you have the option of saving the search (see image above). Saved searches are continuously updated with items matching the search criteria, so they’re a powerful way to keep track of items coming in to your library or items you’re making changes to. You can also use saved searches to do things like correcting metadata associated with your citations. For example, by selecting URL 'does not contain' % you can always see which items require editing to ensure they don’t miss key pieces of information you may want them to have.

Notes
To create a note attached to an item, select the item from the list in the center window and either click the New Note button at the top and select Add Child Note, or go to the Notes tab in the right window and click the Add button.

A note will be created as an attachment to the item (and also show up under the Notes tab). Additionally, a note editor will appear on the right-hand side. You can open a separate window for the editor by clicking the Edit in a separate window button at the bottom of the editor. Zotero automatically saves your input while typing.

Zotero will sometimes automatically import information from a resource, such as the table of contents or abstract, into the notes of an item. If you don't want these notes, use the editor to change or delete these entries - you can also delete the entire note by selecting and deleting it.

A second Note type is Standalone Notes. Standalone notes are not directly related to any item in your library (they don't belong to an entry) and will appear in the list of items in your library. To create a standalone note, click the New Note button and select New Standalone Note.

Relations
Your articles and entries can also have relationships (isn't that nice?). On the right side, switch to the Related tab. Here you can choose other articles related to the entry you selected.
(If you are on your mobile phone and don't see the following .gif, switch to desktop view)

This feature helps you to quickly link essential articles to a network and, again, not lose the overview of your entries.