Google Docs support is provided by the Zotero Connector for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari and requires the Zotero program to function. The Zotero Connector adds a Zotero menu to the Google Docs interface:
It also adds a toolbar button for one-click citing:
Important: Authorization
Interacting with the Zotero functionality for the first time in a document will prompt you to authorization the plugin to access your Google account. Be sure to:
1. Select the Google account you used to create the document or that has been given editing access by the document's creator. This is unrelated to any Zotero account you may have, which isn't required to use Zotero or Google Docs integration.
2. Grant Zotero the permission to “See, edit, create and delete all your Google Docs documents”. Zotero requires this permission to be able to insert and modify citations into your document. The plugin doesn't do anything else with your document content and doesn't access documents other than the ones on which it's triggered. The integration works entirely locally on your computer, so even when you trigger the plugin on a given document, nothing is sent to Zotero servers.
Once you've authorized the plugin to access your document, you can begin inserting citations from your Zotero libraries.
Troubleshooting: Google Docs
Zotero Menu doesn't appear: If nothing appears when you click the Zotero menu, or you see a thin gray line, try restarting Zotero and your browser.
If that doesn't help, disable all other browser extensions, reload Google Docs, and try again. In particular, the Google Docs Offline extension has been reported as interfering with Zotero's Google Docs integration.
In some browsers, you may need to give the Zotero Connector permission to run. While Google Docs support only requires access to docs.google.com and www.zotero.org, if you're going to be using Zotero, you'll want to use the Zotero Connector to save to Zotero, and for that to work it needs to be able to run on all sites. In Chrome or Edge, right-click on the Save to Zotero button in your browser toolbar, select “This Can Read and Change Site Data”, and choose “On All Sites”. In Safari, go to the Websites tab of the Safari settings, click on Zotero Connector in the left column, and make sure any sites that show up and “For other websites” at the bottom are all set to “Allow”.
Citation dialog doesn't appear after clicking Add/Edit Citation
If you can open the Zotero menu but the citation dialog doesn't appear after you click Add/Edit Citation, make sure that a dialog isn't appearing behind your other browser or Zotero windows.
Google Docs: Collaboration
Google Docs is designed to let you collaborate on documents, and Zotero’s integration is no different. You and your coauthors can all insert and edit citations in a shared document, and you don't even need to be in a Zotero group. If you're planning a large collaborative project, though, we recommend using a group library, which not only makes it easy to collect and manage materials but will also allow all collaborators to change cited item metadata (authors, title, date of publication, etc.). If someone cites an item from their personal library, only they will be able to update the metadata for that item.
We recommend that anyone making changes to the document have the Zotero Connector installed. (The Zotero app itself is necessary only if inserting or editing citations.) If someone cuts and pastes an active citation without the Zotero Connector, the citation will be unlinked from Zotero and disappear from the bibliography, and the next person refreshing the document with the Zotero Connector will receive a warning about unlinked citations. While people without the Connector can theoretically edit non-citation parts of the document, we don't recommend it due to the risk of accidental citation unlinking.
When working collaboratively on a document, you and your coauthors should avoid inserting or editing citations at the same time. The Zotero Connector has mechanisms in place to prevent document and citation corruption from concurrent citation editing, but due to technical limitations they do not provide perfect safety.