tikzit VS zotero

Take a look at TikZiT, which is a FOSS GUI for creating tikz files and also turning them into image files. I found it really useful for learning TikZ. Note that you don't need TikZiT to generate images, it's just an example of how it's done.

The best way to TikZ is to copy-paste from previous figures you've created.

The second best is to look for a similar figure on TeXample https://texample.net/tikz/examples/ or stack overflow https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/tikz-pgf

The third best option is to use squared paper to draw by hand, then transfer hand-drawn stuff into TikZ code. It's slow as hell, but works well if you build up a collection of components you can copy-paste into other figs later.

There are also some GUI tools you could try: https://www.mathcha.io/ https://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/cheunen/freetikz/freetikz.htm... https://tikzit.github.io/ etc. (more links in this thread https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/84890/does-there-exi... )

Its much much faster than writing the code, and the output is very clean. You can follow the instructions from the link. takes less than 30 min to set up and less than an hour to get comfortable with it. Its well worth the effort. I have used a configuration similar to the author's config from this page. And my work has been way faster this way.

Maybe try Zotero[1]. There are many addons which can do what you need.

[1]https://www.zotero.org/

And next time, you use a real literature management program like zotero (some university libraries offer classes, there is a r/zotero, etc) or jabref to create a proper bibtex file with the references. It is not that difficult, and keeps you sane (esp. if a paper has to be formatted for a different publisher). See e.g. learnlatex.

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Zotero is your answer, it even auto generates your citations.

https://www.zotero.org/

Apparently there are plugins for Logseq and Obsidian as well.

Zotero - Price: Free Free and open-source reference manager that helps you collect, organize, and cite your research sources.

I use the free and open source Zotero which I think you'd find very calibre-like and manage notes and concept linking with org-roam in emacs.

If you can't hold the urge to know, you can check on the Zotero web library if all of your things are still there

Resources: ZOTERO. Zotero is a free (you can pay to get more storage), open-source citation manager with optional browser plugins. IT WILL FORMAT CITATIONS FOR YOU. (sometimes you have to edit them, but most of the time it can pull metadata and format things correctly on its own). You can sort your references into folders or with tags, read and annotate PDF copies on your computer or in a mobile app, and make notes - which I used to keep track of specific quotations I wanted to use.

You can also use online resources like The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences, that I think is mostly free or the Handbook of Archaeological Sciences which I think is also mostly free. If you can't get a hold of those things you can also email the authors/editors and they might send you a free copy or look them up on Academia.edu and see if they have a free version. Also, if you don't already, use Google Scholar, it's the best resource for finding free articles and topics to read. It's also never too early to start using something like Zotaro, Mendeley, or Endnote to keep track of your readings and help you with citations/references in papers. You can literally download the citation, import it into one of those systems and it automatically formats your referencing.