Export of images in annotations is not yet available, right?

haug

When I drag and drop an annotation from the zotero reader to a text editor the text of the annotation (and more, as described at https://www.zotero.org/support/note_templates) is exported to the text editor. This is really a fantastic feature!

But when I drag and drop an annotation that contains an image instead of text, it doesn't work (the image is not transferred). Since I don't see images mentioned on https://www.zotero.org/support/note_templates I assume that this means that image export via drag and drop is not (yet?) supported. Is this correct?

dstillman

That doesn't have anything to do with note templates. Note templates are about how annotations are rendered in Zotero notes, and obviously image annotations already show up in Zotero notes.

If you want images to be exported when you drag notes, you'd have to say what export format you're referring to (i.e., Markdown, rich text, or HTML) and exactly what form you expect the image to be in. See my comment here for more.

haug

I'm not sure why this has nothing to do with note templates. Maybe I misunderstand the terminology? I think there is some confusion about "notes" and "annotations", which obviously are two very different things in Zotero, but yet, the template for exporting an annotation is called a "note template.

Regardless of the terminology, I can clearly see a connection: I have successfully adapted the note template for dragging and dropping annotations so that the result I get in the text editor looks the way I want it to. I did this by editing extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight as described at https://www.zotero.org/support/note_templates. I did not have to edit any export Format, and it works with text annotations. So it seemed logical that the exporting image annotations could also be controlled there.

But from reading the thread you linked, I understand the that in the case of images, we need to either include a link to the image or include it in base64 encoded format (I am exporting to Markdown) and I suppose that this "handing over" of the image would be done "inside" the {{highlight}} variable, which is why extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight doesn't need to be edited for this?

In any case: In that thread, the conclusion seems to be that for quick copy (of which drag and drop is a variant, right?) the best solution would be base64. So my question, then, is: how do I accomplish that?

adamsmith

Note templates affect how annotations are displayed in notes (hence "note templates"). Obviously, that does affect exactly how the note looks on export, but it doesn't affect whether and how an image from an annotation is included in a note for export (because it's included in the note either way), so they're indeed irrelevant here.

Easiest solution to get you images from notes in export would be to use the better notes plugin linked on that page, I believe. I don't think there's a quick copy option.

haug

Note templates affect how annotations are displayed in notes (hence "note templates").

The confusing thing is that I don't work with zotero notes at all. I'm just exporting annotations.

it doesn't affect whether and how an image from an annotation is included in a note for export (because it's included in the note either way)

To me, it is not at all evident that an image would be included anyway. There are a number of elements from the annotation that I can choose to include in the export or not (tags, comments, colour, citation, ...) so why not the image?

Anyway, I am just explaining what this is not obvious. Your answers help be understand better. So the image is included in the {{highlight}} variable, right?

Thank you for pointing me to the Better Notes Plugin. When I saw it some time ago, I thought it was not relevant for me because I don't use Notes in Zotero. I will take a closer look at it asap, but having skimmed through the documentation, it appears that using it entails first creating a zotero note from the annotation and then exporting the note, is that correct?

In that case, I'd still be interested in learning more about using base64 for Quick Copy as suggested at https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/409390/#Comment_409390.

dstillman

The confusing thing is that I don't work with zotero notes at all. I'm just exporting annotations.

Ah, sorry — I misunderstood that part. The "note" in "note templates" does refer to Zotero notes, but they're also used when dragging annotations directly via Quick Copy as well. The name is a little confusing in that case, but basically it's just doing the note conversion internally and then exporting using the Quick Copy note output format that's set in the preferences. So you're essentially still exporting a note — just without having to explicitly create one.

And that's why note templates still aren't relevant here. There's no note template for image annotations — only for highlight and note annotations — so the output here would just be identical to dragging an image annotation to an empty note and then exporting that note. There'd be the same issue with an image you added directly to a Zotero note. All that matters is that images aren't included in note exports, for the reasons in the linked thread.