What is translators_cn?

l0o0/translators_cn — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-26

★ 4,651JavaScriptAudience · researcherComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((translators-cn))
    What it does
      Extend Zotero
      Save Chinese citations
      Automate reference capture
    Supported sites
      CNKI
      Wanfang
      SooPat patents
    Who uses it
      Researchers
      Students
      Academics
    Tech
      JavaScript
      Zotero plugin
      Community-maintained

mindmap root((translators-cn)) What it does Extend Zotero Save Chinese citations Automate reference capture Supported sites CNKI Wanfang SooPat patents Who uses it Researchers Students Academics Tech JavaScript Zotero plugin Community-maintained

Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Save academic citations from Chinese databases like CNKI and Wanfang directly into Zotero with one click, just like you would for English journals

USE CASE 2

Replace outdated official Zotero translators for Chinese sites with community-maintained versions that actually work

USE CASE 3

Import Chinese patent citations from SooPat into your Zotero library automatically

USE CASE 4

Contribute a new translator for a Chinese academic database that is not yet covered by the project

What is it built with?

JavaScript

How does it compare?

	l0o0/translators_cn	alexnisnevich/untrusted	itheima1/blockchain
Stars	4,651	4,652	4,649
Language	JavaScript	JavaScript	JavaScript
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	easy
Complexity	1/5	1/5	3/5
Audience	researcher	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

So what is it?

Zotero is a free tool that researchers use to collect and organize academic sources, such as journal articles, books, and web pages. When you visit an academic website and click Zotero's browser button, it reads the page and saves the citation details, including the author, title, journal name, and date, to your library. The scripts that teach Zotero how to read a particular website are called translators. This repository is a community-maintained collection of translators built specifically for Chinese academic databases and websites. The description mentions sites like CNKI, Wanfang, and SooPat, which are major platforms for Chinese scholarly literature and patents. These are not covered well by the official Zotero translator set, and some existing unofficial translators had grown outdated, so this project exists to keep them working and up to date. The README is written in Chinese and is fairly brief. It points contributors to Zotero's official documentation for writing translators and lists several community members who have helped maintain the project. There is also a QQ group for questions and discussion. The project is unofficial and independent from the Zotero team. It is labeled as beta, meaning it may have rough edges. If you use Zotero and need to save citations from Chinese academic sites, installing these translators can allow that to work the same way it does for major English-language databases.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I use Zotero and need to save citations from CNKI. How do I install these community translators from this repo and test that they are working correctly?

Prompt 2

A translator in this collection is broken for a Chinese database I use. How do I debug it using the Zotero official translator development documentation?

Prompt 3

How do I manually install a single updated translator file from this repo into my local Zotero without waiting for a packaged release?

Prompt 4

I want to contribute a new translator for a Chinese academic site. What is the minimal structure a Zotero translator file needs, based on the official docs this project links to?

Frequently asked questions