publicimageltd / pullbib

Let Emacs export your zotero libraries to a .bib file

Pullbib - Let Emacs export your zotero libraries to a .bib file

Purpose

Pullbib provides commands to pull your Zotero library to any file, i.e. a .bib file, updating its content. Basically, it means you can trigger an export of your Zotero libraries to your bibliograpy files from within Emacs.

For these commands to work, you have to install the BetterBibtex extension in Zotero.

Installation and setup

You will currently have to clone this package with quelpa or straight. Here’s an example:

(use-package pullbib
  :quelpa (pullbib
	     :fetcher github
	     :repo "publicimageltd/pullbib")
  :config
  ;; Obligatory for pullbib to work, see below:
  (setq pullbib-url-map <some-value>))

As you see in the example, for pullbib to work, you must set up a list which maps library URLs to associated bibliography files. Here’s a real world example:

 (setq pullbib-url-map
	'(("http://127.0.0.1:23119/better-bibtex/export/library?/1/library.biblatex" . "~/my-bibfile.bib")))

It makes sense to export to a bibliography file which is also used by other Emacs packages, e.g. bibtex-completion.

To find the correct URL, open Zotero (with BetterBibTex installed) and right-click on the library you want to export. See also https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/exporting/pull/.

Usage

Just call pullbib-pull, interactively or non-interactively (e.g. in a hook). It will pull all libraries defined in pullbib-url-map.

If pullbib-url-map contains multiple entries, interactive calls of pullbib-pull prompts the user to select the target file. The idea is that you usually don’t want to update all files at once.

If called non-interactively, however, pullbib-pull does pull all files. The idea is that if used in a hook, you don’t want to be disturbed by being prompted to select the target.

Changelog

• Add interactive selection of export target
• Expand filename before passing it to curl
• Initial commit.