I just completed using Scrivener (Windows Beta Expiring 8/15/2020) to create an academic paper, which is distinguished by having lots of citations. I found the following.
• Scrivener was great for allowing me to arrange and rearrange, edit and modify my paper. I'd use it again in a flash.
• Handling citations, at least working with Zotero, is problematic.
? I chose to use the recommended method of exporting in RTF format, then using a Zotero tool to covert the citations to my desired format IEEE. It worked, somewhat.
§ It did NOT pick up all the citations in the text
§ When I opened the converted document in Word (O365 Win10 latest version 8/2020) the document was visually valid BUT, the citations were not active. To fix the ones that weren't picked up I decided I had to go through and replace all the visually valid citations with MSW field citations using Word's Zotero tool. I was then able to regenerate the bibliography and make changes as desired. This took a couple of hours, but I still was satisfied.
? Next time I'd put the RTF citations into Scrivener the same way, but I'd compile directly to Word docx format and then search for the "{" symbol in the document to make my way through and insert the citations. I just tested that and it worked well.
• Scrivener has (I believe) a bug in the compile settings that produces large gaps between section titles and text. They were relatively easy to fix in Word so I gave up trying to do it in Scrivener.
• More generally, the compile explanations took me about three days of scrambling to the manual, to videos and endless experimentation to understand. The ability to handle an extraordinary range of outputs is remarkable, but the interface definitely could be improved. I think I understand it now, but would hate to take an exam on where I go to change what - it seems all over the place.
I have to end by reiterating that I’m more in awe of what Scrivener does than before and would definitely use it again on my next academic paper. I’ve used many pieces of software over 50 years. Scrivener is right up there at the top few (Excel is my top) as “Best in Category” and truly amazing.