Hey everyone,
Since Obsidian’s note-taking system has made my life a whole lot easier, I now want to do all my writing in Obsidian too. (The idea of having my research, notes, and drafts all in one place is just fantastic.)
I’m trying to move my entire process from Word + Citavi to Obsidian + Zotero.
I exported my library from Citavi to Zotero, and I’ve managed to get everything set up: Zotero is talking to Obsidian (via Pandoc, Pandoc Reference List, Zotero Integration Plugins in Obsidian; and Better BibTex Plugin in Zotero).
Everything is great, but I’ve run into a specific question about exporting, plus a more general question/worry.
(1) Exporting to Word with Formatted References
My main problem is getting a finished paper out of Obsidian and into a .docx file for final formatting. Most journals need specific formatting even for the first submission (double spacing, margins, page numbers etc.), so this last step in Word (or a similar software) is unavoidable for me.
When I use the standard export plugins within Obsidian, the final .docx file has the raw Zotero citation keys (e.g., @parfitWhatMattersVolume2011) instead of formatted citations. (Of course, I could add the references with the Output Format “Formatted Citation” in Obsidian, but then I wouldn’t be able to change the citation style etc.)
After exporting to a Word file, I don’t need any Zotero fields.
Instead, I just want to write in Obsidian and be able to change the style at any time, then export the whole thing as plain text in Word (with formatted citations) so that I can apply the formatting required for the respective journal.
After some tinkering, I found a workaround (with Gemini’s help) using the command line:
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Export my Zotero library as “Better CSL JSON” into my vault.
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Run this command in the terminal:
pandoc “file_name.md” --bibliography=my_library.json --citeproc -o “my_new_document.docx”
It seems to work well.
But I wonder if this is really the easiest way to do it.
And since I don’t really understand what I’m doing here, I’m afraid it might not be future-proof, or problematic for other reasons.
So, my question is: Is there a more integrated way to achieve this: exporting a md-file with fully rendered, plain-text references to .docx from Obsidian?
Or another method to achieve the formatting for submissions?
(2) And a more general question: Am I overlooking anything important that I should consider before switching my entire workflow from Word+Citavi to Obsidian+Zotero?
(After all, Word is the most widely used software, future-proof, etc. Should I be concerned? Or should I take care of some further things I am missing?)
I am grateful for any help, advice, and insights.