跳到主要内容

Custom Harvard With Journal Abbr (CSL)

A Zotero/Mendeley CSL style that formats in-text citations as (Author, Journal Abbr, Year) and uses journal abbreviations.

Custom Zotero Citation Style for Academic Presentations

This tutorial shows how to create, install, and configure a custom Zotero citation style for generating concise, standardized references in PowerPoint or Beamer presentations.
It is based on a Harvard-style format with journal abbreviations, producing outputs such as:

(Deng et al., Plant Phenomics, 2025)

This format keeps your slides clean and professional while ensuring consistency with academic citation standards.

1. Overview​

When preparing academic presentations, full-length reference lists can clutter your slides.
A compact citation format like (Author, Journal Abbr, Year) conveys all essential information clearly and efficiently.

This tutorial introduces a custom CSL (Citation Style Language) file you can import into Zotero to automatically generate citations in this format.

2. CSL Template Code​

Save the following XML code as custom-harvard-with-journal-abbr.csl on your computer: custom-harvard-with-journal-abbr.csl

3.How to Install and Configure​

Follow these steps to install and enable the custom style in Zotero:

  1. Open Zotero
  2. Go to Preferences → Cite → Style Manager
  3. Click “+” → Add Style…
  4. Select the file custom-harvard-with-journal-abbr.csl
  5. The new style will appear in the list as Custom Harvard With Journal Abbr
  6. To configure for exporting: Go to Preferences → Export → Item Format, Select 'Custom Harvard With Journal Abbr'

4. How to Use in PowerPoint or Beamer​

After setup, Zotero allows you to insert references directly into slides:

  1. In Zotero, select one or more items.
  2. Drag the selected items directly into a PowerPoint.
  3. Zotero will automatically insert formatted citations, e.g.:
(Deng et al., Plant Phenomics, 2025)

For multiple references:

(Tang et al., J. Integr. Agric., 2025).
(Deng et al., Plant Phenomics, 2025).