LaTeX is a powerful free and open-source academic writing system; however, it does come with a learning curve. This curve can be especially steep when trying to incorporate bibliographic references and formatting a document to the current writing style of the field - APA 6th edition. Anyone who has submitted a manuscript for publication is familiar with the trials and tribulations of formatting and citing sources. Any tool to help with this process is a welcome one. Although LaTeX comes close to APA compatibility natively, it doesn't quite nail it. This post describes how to set-up and integrate a powerful (and free) LaTeX editor with a powerful (and free) citation manager to assist with formatting and citing. To get started, you will need to download and install two programs.

Then download two files that will run on these programs.

These programs and files are compatible with the major operating systems. Installation with Windows and macOS is largely a matter of point and click. Installation on Linux requires a bit more know-how of course; and it's assumed that those using a Linux distribution are familiar with the processes for installing programs and various file extensions. If you are already familiar with the terminology of LaTeX and citation managers then read on. If not, it would be helpful to first review the key terms listed at the end of this post.

Zotero can be used separately as a reference manager, but its real utility comes from its ability to generate a bibliographic reference file (i.e., .bib file) that contains cite keys for each of your references. These cite keys are entered into a LaTeX document to generate citations. Although Zotero has a great deal of native functionality, some set-up is required for fluid integration with LaTeX. First, you need to install Better BibTex, a program for generating those cite keys.

From the Zotero toolbar, navigate to: Tools > Add-ons > Extensions.

Select the gear icon in the top-right corner and select ‘Install Add-on From File…’ Navigate to the folder where you saved the Better Bibtex file and install it. At this point you will need to restart Zotero to complete the install and auto-update to the most recent version of Better Bibtex. Navigate back to Extensions and make sure Better Bibtex is now listed. You may see an option for preferences. Don't worry about setting-up the Better BibTex preferences yet; that will be done in a moment.