Shortcut for highlight and line text in pdf viewer window

fredericky

I think Pdf expert have those two shortcuts, can we also have?
like Mac, option+cmd+H and option+cmd+U(nderline), respectively

dstillman

You can use Option + the number keys to select the different annotation tools.

fredericky

Thank you. This is a little different from expectation. Shortcut of option+cmd+H and option+cmd+U(nderline) means that once text selected, using these shortcuts can mark these texts.

dstillman

In Zotero, there are two highlighting/underlining modes you can use: one where you turn on highlighting or underlining and choose a color, and then every selection immediately creates an annotation, and another where you just select text and then choose the color you want for your highlight from the popup. (The latter only creates highlights at the moment in Zotero 7, but we might make it possible to choose whether to create highlights or underlines.) What you're asking for doesn't really make sense — it wouldn't apply to the first mode, and for the second mode, there's already a color popup right there as you're making a selection with the mouse, and the point is that you're choosing a color for each selection.

What we'll likely be doing, however, is 1) moving the color popup closer to where the mouse cursor is released, instead of centering it over the text selection, so that it's faster to choose colors and 2) making it possible to press a number key on the keyboard to choose a color from the color popup.

fredericky

Great! If the second way is useful for underline, that will be perfect. Appreciate your efforts to make highlight and underline funciton more convenient!

sojusnik

> (The latter only creates highlights at the moment in Zotero 7, but we might make it possible to choose whether to create highlights or underlines.)

That's a great idea and would be very useful!

DonnaCoxBaker

Does this have a PC equivalent?

dstillman

Alt = Option

miller-max

(On GitHub too, I can remove)

Thanks Dstillman! Is there any way to use this same shortcut to pick a color when selecting text? (in addition to when picking color for the highlighted tool)

What I usually do when note-taking:
1. Highlight text in a colour (requiring choosing/clicking colour each time)
2. Copy+Paste this into a single notes page (would also be great to have a keyboard shortcut for "Add to Note" feature)- as it's quicker to do that than click "Add to Note" for now
3. (I then try and reformulate my understanding of that citation in my own shorter words)

Hence, using the highlighter tool doesn't work for me here as I need to select that text to Copy-Paste it into a note. Would be good to have a shortcut to pick the colour at this moment (what you call the popup? under my understanding), doesn't seem like there is one right now (only to choose colour for the highlighter tool, not popup).

Alternatively, some kind of toggle like "When using highlighter tool to highlight text, automatically send to Note" -> might solve everything.

Let me know if this feedback should go anywhere else, I'm struggling to find a centralised point for feedback. Thanks for things so far!

dstillman

@miller-max: The general recommended approach would be to highlight (using the locking highlight mode if you don't want to select a color each time), add comments directly to annotations as necessary, and then add all annotations from the document — or all of a single color — to a note in a single step from the reader's Notes pane. Then your thoughts on the annotation remain tied to it, not disconnected in a separate note.

But as I say, we'll likely make it possible to choose a color from the text-selection popup in a future version.