Split view with two different PDFs

neti

Hi,
when I split view it only shows the same PDF twice, is there a way to have on screen multiple files at once?

Thanks

mjthoraval

You can open the PDF in a new window from a right-click on the item or on the tab's title. Then you can reoragnize the windows as you wish from your system.

neti

Yes, but I would like to see the new pdf in split view mode. I can't find a way to "merge" two tabs

mjthoraval

One PDF Viewer tab is linked to the left and right panes that show information specific to that PDF file. So it would be confusing to show different PDF files in the same tab.

Could you clarify exactly what you want to achieve by showing two different PDF files in split view?
What would be the advantage of doing this compared to managing multiple windows?
There are many multitasking / split view options already available depending on your OS, or other apps that can enhance the handling of multiple windows.

neti

I'm using it to compare different versions of a text. I need the two PDFs to be side to side and it would have been great to do it on Zotero.
I understand if it exceeds its aims.

mjthoraval

Have you tested opening the two PDF files in two different Zotero windows? The OS split view feature should automatically resize your windows to use half of the screen so that you can see the two PDF files side by side as you need.

It would be helpful if you could explain in more details the advantages that you see for the split view in the same tab over the two Zotero windows.

middleton2024

Would vote for this feature request as well.

At present, one can split the view of the same Item in either a horizontal or vertical pane. Use case: looking up the same article's references, endnotes or bibliography while reading it.

I wrote down this feature request:
Ability to select two different Items (pdf and/or epub-files) and view them side-by-side i.e. each in their own vertical or horizontal pane.

Use cases
* comparing an book or article and its review;
* comparing different editions or versions;
* reading an article while consulting its citation;
* reading an article while viewing an atlas or map of the geographic areas mentioned in the article, published in another item.

As a workaround, I use the Vivaldi browser's split view capabilities to show two different pdf-files stored in the Zotero folder if one of my use cases require it.

AbeJellinek

Have you tried opening the documents in separate windows and tiling them? As long as you're on a recent version of Windows or macOS 15, you should be able to select the PDFs/EPUBs in Zotero, right-click -> Open PDFs in New Window, then drag the windows to the left/right sides of your screen to tile them.

iagogv

@mjthoraval

One PDF Viewer tab is linked to the left and right panes that show information specific to that PDF file. So it would be confusing to show different PDF files in the same tab.

Actually, split view should split not only the pdf views, but all the zotero info view, so left and right panes would be visible for both tabs, just like the split view in browsers like the mentioned Vivaldi. Even more, it should be possible not only for the pdf's view, but for the main tab with collections+items+fields view (this would be very useful when an item is added and you want to check if it is a duplicate looking at the Duplicate Items collection without going out the actual item collection).

I assume that as Zotero is based on Firefox, it may become a fact the day split view be implemented in Firefox.

Regarding separate windows for different documents and tiling them, this is a solution with a proper window manager (i3, dwm, sway, qtile), but otherwise, this is quite more work than just splitting the Zotero window for a user.

AbeJellinek

As far as I know, all major operating systems / desktop environments have some kind of window tiling feature built in now. You can normally engage it by dragging a window to one of the edges or corners of the screen.