Problems installing the Zotero plugin

[danielsalinas00]

Hello! I have been having trouble installing the Zotero (reference manager software) plugin for LibreOffice.

I’m running on a MacOS 10.13.6. Zotero is 6.0.13 and LibreOffice is 7.4.0.3.

If I run the automatic PlugIn installation I get the following message: “Installation could not be completed because an error occurred. Please ensure that LibreOffice is closed, and then restart Zotero.”

When I try the manual one, first I get “LibreOffice requires a Java runtime environment (JRE) to perform this task. The selected JRE is defective. Please select another version or install a new JRE and select it under LibreOffice - Preferences - LibreOffice - Advanced.”

And then when trying to install it shows “Could not create Java implementation loader”.

After reading online about this defective JRE and watching a few Youtube videos I’ve downloaded the last JDK (18.0.2.1), which is what, if I understand correctly, should have a working JRE. But I am a little lost and I’m not even sure if the JDK was installed properly (although in LibreOffice’s Java Options it does appear as the JRE used).

I’m not the most tech savvy person and I am lost now, looking for answers or possible solutions online has only confused and frustrated because they don’t seem to be working. I just want to install the plugin to be able to cite and reference using Zotero on my text documents on LibreOffice.

Any help is really appreciated!

[ajlittoz]

This is not an answer. I’m just asking for clarification. What do you want to do? You say to be able to cite and reference. Does it mean you need a “cross-document referencer”? Or will a simple bibliography tool be sufficient? I ask because installing Zotero doesn’t seem to be a trivial task and, afterwards, it creates formatting problems because it works as an “isolated island” within Writer documents, i.e. it does all its formatting on its own instead of relying on Writer primitives (that’s the price for a universal [= not attached to a particular office suite] service implementation).

Zotero is a sophisticated tool offering services beyond citation. It manages excerpts from books, journals, … and organises them ready for citation and bibliography generation. Through the tool, they are available in a variety of applications, not only Writer.

If you don’t need this cross-application feature, don’t go for Zotero. Start with the much simpler built-in bibliography feature.

[danielsalinas00]

Hello, yes, maybe my wording was not that clear, I want a reference manager and all that that entails (formatting, etc). Until recently I was using Mendeley and the plugin worked fine, but I moved to Zotero due to the changes in Mendeley and end my use of Elsevier products. So far I really like Zotero, except this frustrating issue with the plug-in.