# Zotero best practices

**URL:** <https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zotero-best-practices/164>\
**Category:** Knowledge management\
**Created:** [May 21, 2020, 5:52am UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zotero-best-practices/164 "2020-05-21T05:52:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 54

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jeejay](https://forum.obsidian.md/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@jeejay](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/jeejay)\
**Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 12:02pm UTC](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zotero-best-practices/164/54 "2020-08-21T12:02:55Z")

</div>

My friend helped me to write a small Python parser of my bibliography in BetterBibtex bib file and save every reference as md file in Obsidian vault.  
How to use it:  
1: install BetterBibtex as described in Zettlr docs. Citation key later will serve as a filename so use appropriate keys, i.e. no semicolons or other special symbols are allowed.  
2. Copy the script (below) and bib file into `references` folder inside your vault.  
3. Run the script:

```python
import json
import collections

def flatten(d, parent_key='', sep='_'):
    items = []
    for k, v in d.items():
        new_key = parent_key + sep + k if parent_key else k
        if isinstance(v, collections.MutableMapping):
            items.extend(flatten(v, new_key, sep=sep).items())
        else:
            items.append((new_key, v))
    return dict(items)

def flatten_publication_info(publication_info):
    if publication_info.get('author', False):
        publication_info['authors'] = [author['family']+' '+author['given'] for author in publication_info['author']]
        publication_info = flatten(publication_info)
        return publication_info
    elif publication_info.get('authors', False):
        publication_info['authors'] = [author['family']+' '+author['given'] for author in publication_info['authors']]
        publication_info = flatten(publication_info)
        return publication_info
    return None

f = open('My Library.json','r', encoding='utf8')
data = json.load(f)
for elem in data:
    try:
        flat_publication = flatten_publication_info(elem)
        if flat_publication:
            filename = 'ZOT' + elem['id'] + '.md'
            writer = open(filename,'w+', encoding='utf8')
            title = flat_publication['title']
            abstract = flat_publication.get('abstract','Empty')
            authors = ';'.join(flat_publication['authors'])
            writer.write('tags: #zotero #reference\nlinks: [[Zotero library]] [[Readings MOC]]\n') #header
            writer.write('### %s\n ###### Authors\n%s\n ###### Abstract\n%s' % (title,authors,abstract))
            writer.close()
    except Exception as e:
        print('Problems with %s' % (elem['id']))
        print(e)

```

It will produce a lot of md files that you could reference from Obsidian. It will look like this:

 ![image](https://forum.obsidian.md/uploads/default/original/2X/7/73fa0167e3c72aed4a47ba9e15a2931f324b6956.jpeg)

---

_[View the full topic](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/zotero-best-practices/164)._