Zotero → Obsidian Advanced Template

A structured template to integrate Zotero annotations into Obsidian, designed for deep reading, synthesis, and knowledge building.

✨ Features

• Automatic import of Zotero metadata and annotations
• Structured sections for:
  • Summary
  • Connections
  • Questions
  • Definitions
• Integrated Obsidian → Anki-ready fields
• Visual thinking sections (mindmaps, schemes) to be filled with mermaid.
• Annotation categorization by color

🧠 Philosophy

This template is designed to follow a 3-step learning process:

1. Capture → Highlights & annotations from Zotero
2. Process → Comments, connections, and structure
3. Synthesize → Personal summaries and insights

🧾 Example Output

See a real generated note here:
→ examples/example_note.md

🎯 Who is this for?

This template is designed for:

• Students and researchers
• Knowledge workers building a personal knowledge base
• Users combining Zotero + Obsidian + Anki
• Anyone interested in structured note-taking and deep learning workflows

⚙️ Requirements

• Obsidian
• Zotero
• Zotero Integration plugin
• Nunjucks templating (used internally by the plugin)

Optional:

• Pandoc & Pandoc Reference List (for automatic links between Zotero reading notes using {{ }}-style links)
• Obsidian to Anki plugin (for spaced repetition workflow)
• Advanced Obsidian Admonitions (for [!Citation], [!Synthesis], [!Metadata], etc.)
• Mermaid plugin (for mindmaps, flowcharts, diagrams)
• LaTeX / MathJax support (for inline $...$ and block $$...$$ math)
• YAML frontmatter support (Obsidian natively handles frontmatter, required for tags, categories, citekey)

⚡ Quick Start

1. Install Zotero Integration plugin in Obsidian
2. Add template.md to your templates folder
3. Select it inside the plugin settings
4. Import any Zotero item

→ You should immediately get a fully structured note

📂 Structure

• template.md → main template
• examples/ → example output

📌 Notes

• Sections marked with comments are intended for manual input (e.g., summaries or outlines)
• Metadata and annotations are automatically generated
• Annotation structure depends on your Zotero annotation style and may require adaptation

🧩 Customization

Feel free to adapt:

• Tags system
• Anki fields
• Section structure

🙏 Inspiration

This template builds upon ideas from existing Zotero–Obsidian workflows, particularly:

• Alexandra Phelan, An Updated Academic Workflow: Zotero & Obsidian

While inspired by this approach, the template has been significantly extended to support:

• Structured synthesis
• Knowledge connections
• Anki integration
• Advanced annotation processing

📜 License

MIT License