# Getting a Zenodo DOI for an article or field note

> Get a free DOI on Zenodo for an article or field note: what a DOI is, the metadata to prepare, the license, and the deposit step by step.

Canonical: https://ntilia.com/en/guides/get-a-zenodo-doi
Updated: 2026-09-27

## The essentials

Zenodo, CERN’s open archive, assigns a DOI to anything you deposit: an article, a preprint, a dataset, a field note. Prepare a title, an abstract, your co-authors with their ORCID and a license, upload the file and publish: the DOI is permanent and your work becomes citable.

## What a DOI is, and why Zenodo

A DOI is a permanent identifier: it always points to your work, even if its address changes. Zenodo, run by CERN, registers its DOIs with DataCite and passes the metadata on to scholarly aggregators. It is a solid option for a field note, a report or a preprint.

## What to prepare

- A clear title and abstract.
- The authors, with their ORCID and affiliation.
- A license: Creative Commons (CC BY, CC BY-SA…) to allow reuse.
- The file: a readable PDF and, if possible, the source (Markdown, data).
- Keywords and, where relevant, related works.

## Depositing on Zenodo, step by step

1. **Create an account** — Sign in to Zenodo, for example with your ORCID.
2. **New upload** — Add your files, then choose the resource type (publication, preprint, report…).
3. **Fill in the metadata** — Title, authors, abstract, license, keywords. They make the deposit findable and citable.
4. **Publish** — The DOI is minted on publication. Check everything first: you don’t replace the files of a published record, you create a new version.

## From nTilia, in one click

From Pro, the editor menu sends an article published under a Creative Commons license to Zenodo: preprint PDF and Markdown source. The DOI (prefix 10.5281) comes back in the frontmatter, the Cite block, the APA, BibTeX, RIS and JATS exports, and the JSON-LD.

> **Good to know** — You need a personal Zenodo token (deposit:write and deposit:actions scopes), pasted into Settings → Syndication; it is encrypted server-side. One deposit per article: the DOI stays tied to the public version deposited.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is getting a DOI on Zenodo free?

Yes, depositing on Zenodo and getting a DOI costs nothing. In nTilia, one-click deposit is included from Pro.

### Can I change a record after publishing?

Some metadata can be corrected, but files can’t be replaced: you publish a new version, with its own DOI.

### Can a field note get a DOI?

Yes. Zenodo accepts any kind of research output: article, report, dataset, note. The DOI makes it citable like any publication.

## Go further

- [Story: a field notebook that becomes citable](https://ntilia.com/en/research)
- [nTilia for researchers](https://ntilia.com/en/for/researchers)
- [Comparison: nTilia or Zettlr](https://ntilia.com/en/compare/zettlr)
- [Obsidian alternatives for publishing](https://ntilia.com/en/alternatives/obsidian)

## Sources

- [Zenodo — About](https://about.zenodo.org/)
- [Zenodo — Help](https://help.zenodo.org/)