# The digital field notebook for researchers

> An offline field notebook for researchers: records, interviews transcribed on the device, Zotero citations, ORCID co-authors and a Zenodo DOI.

Canonical: https://ntilia.com/en/for/researchers
Updated: 2026-09-27

## In one sentence

nTilia is a digital field notebook that works offline: you note records and interviews on site, transcribe them on the device, cite your Zotero references, then publish the note with an abstract, ORCID co-authors and a Zenodo DOI.

## What field research demands

- Taking notes without a network, in a format that will outlive the software.
- Keeping a campaign’s method, records and interviews together.
- Protecting participants’ identities and the location of sensitive sites.
- Making a field note citable, not just archived.

## How nTilia answers

1. **One Mission per campaign** — 5W, interview or lab-notebook skeletons, with date, place and GPS prefilled. GPS can be masked on publication.
2. **Open Markdown** — Your notes stay in Markdown: Mission ZIP export (notes, audio, metadata), .md import.
3. **Citations while writing** — [@citekey] from a local Better CSL JSON or BibTeX file: nothing is sent to the cloud.
4. **Citable publishing** — Abstract and co-authors with ORCID and affiliation, a Cite block (APA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS, JATS), tags read by Google Scholar and Zotero.
5. **One-click Zenodo DOI** — From Pro: the published article goes to Zenodo, CERN’s archive, as a preprint PDF and Markdown source. The DOI comes back in the Cite block.

## What nTilia doesn’t do

nTilia is not a thesis-writing tool: for a long manuscript with a precise citation style and LaTeX export, an editor like Zettlr is a better fit. Both speak Markdown: capture with nTilia, write with Zettlr.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I get a DOI for a field note?

In nTilia, from Pro: publish the article under a Creative Commons license, then deposit it on Zenodo from the editor. Zenodo mints the DOI and it comes back in the Cite block.

### Does nTilia work with Zotero?

Yes: you cite while writing with [@citekey] from a local file exported from Zotero, and your published articles are added to Zotero in one click thanks to their metadata.

### Does my research data go to the cloud?

Device-only notes never leave the phone, and transcription happens on the device. Everything else, once synced, is private but not end-to-end encrypted: that is what lets you publish it in the journal, then deposit it on Zenodo.

## Go further

- [Story: a field notebook that becomes citable](https://ntilia.com/en/research)
- [Guide: get a Zenodo DOI](https://ntilia.com/en/guides/get-a-zenodo-doi)
- [Guide: transcribe interviews offline](https://ntilia.com/en/guides/transcribe-interviews-offline)
- [Comparison: nTilia or Zettlr](https://ntilia.com/en/compare/zettlr)
- [Guide: interview transcription, method and GDPR](https://ntilia.com/en/guides/interview-transcription)