So many options, so little time! Zotero's Preferences section can help you get just what you need out of Zotero. From the menu section, click 'Edit' then 'Preferences:
You don't need to use all the tabs within Zotero Preferences, but here are the ones that are very useful:
- General: Change where Zotero appears, the font size and some miscellaneous options.
- Sync: Create a Zotero account and select 'sync automatically' so your items are available on any computer that has Zotero installed.
- Search: Make sure the PDF to Text indexer is installed If you want to be able to pull citation information from PDF files.
- Export: You can set your default citation If you use a certain style manual (APA, MLA, Chicago) most of the time.
- Cite: Here's where you find the write and cite tool if you did not install the add-in for Word during the initial Zotero install. The Styles tab has all the basic citation styles. But, you can find even more by clicking on the 'Get Additional Styles' link.