Journal article with volume, issue, and article number (eid)

Author: warwickmmCreated Sep 14, 2026Updated Sep 17, 2026

Debug log ID

ZZ9XFQKJ-refs-euc/✓/✓

What happened?

In Zotero, I have a Journal Article entry that has a volume and issue:

Image

As-is, the biblatex exported entry becomes:

@article{lastJournalArticleArticle2000,
  title = {Journal Article with Article Number},
  author = {Last, First},
  date = {2000},
  journaltitle = {Fake Journal},
  shortjournal = {Fake J.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {2} 
}

Now, this entry is also supposed to have an article number. My understanding is that for Zotero, adding Number: 3 in the Extra field accomplishes this for several citation styles (e.g., APA Style 7th edition). I can see the effect of this in the item pane header:

Image

However, when adding Number: 3 in the Extra field, the biblatex exported entry becomes:

@article{lastJournalArticleArticle2000,
  title = {Journal Article with Article Number},
  author = {Last, First},
  date = {2000},
  journaltitle = {Fake Journal},
  shortjournal = {Fake J.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {3},
  issue = {2} 
}

Note that the number = {2} has now become number = {3}, and the issue number has been moved to issue = {2}. This doesn't feel right, as the biblatex documentation states that:

This field is intended for journals whose individual issues are identified by a designation such as ‘Spring’ or ‘Summer’ rather than the month or a number.

To get things working in my rendered latex bibliography, I replaced Number: 3 with tex.eid: 3 in the Extra field. This results in the biblatex export

@article{lastJournalArticleArticle2000,
  title = {Journal Article with Article Number},
  author = {Last, First},
  date = {2000},
  journaltitle = {Fake Journal},
  shortjournal = {Fake J.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {2},
  eid = {3} 
}

and the rendered latex bibliography (apa style)

Image

However, without Number: 3 Zotero (APA Style 7th edition) won't recognize the article number.

Issue:

I cannot get both Zotero and biblatex to recognize the article number. I need tex.eid: 3 for biblatex, and Number: 3 for Zotero. The latter ends up moving the issue number to issue = {2}, which doesn't work well in the rendered bibliography.

@article{lastJournalArticleArticle2000,
  title = {Journal Article with Article Number},
  author = {Last, First},
  date = {2000},
  journaltitle = {Fake Journal},
  shortjournal = {Fake J.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {3},
  eid = {3},
  issue = {2} 
}

The 3 appears twice, and the 2 is missing:

Image

Desired Result:

It would be nice if I can somehow get Zotero to recognize the article number

Image

and have the biblatex exported entry look like:

@article{lastJournalArticleArticle2000,
  title = {Journal Article with Article Number},
  author = {Last, First},
  date = {2000},
  journaltitle = {Fake Journal},
  shortjournal = {Fake J.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {2},
  eid = {3},
}

Source: retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex