Feature Request: Zotero PDF viewer - Spreads - page-right-to-left layout

xfang39

This request might cater to a niche requirement, but it would be significantly beneficial for us. My work often involves searching through ancient texts, particularly in Chinese, where the classical texts are traditionally composed in a top-down and right-to-left format. When I open a PDF in this layout, the arrangement becomes counterintuitive; what should be the first page on the right appears on the left, and, more challenging, the text is oriented from right to left. This setup necessitates starting from the left page, reading right to left, before moving to the right page and continuing in the same direction. This becomes particularly cumbersome during quick reviews.

Could the Zotero PDF viewer incorporate a feature to enable a right-to-left page sequence in one spread? For reference, the Zathura document reader offers this functionality with the command: :set page-right-to-left.

Thank you!!!

martynas_b

Could you add screenshots explaining what exactly you need?

xfang39

Thank for the reply @martynas_b

Below is the current spread layout for classical Chinese text, you can see the page number and I also marked the reading sequence:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u13292608/tv1u04uonbmlevsqz6sj.jpg

Below is the preferred spread layout, as you can see, it will save a lot effort by simply browsing the whole spread from the right to the left:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u13292608/o0iwvouwgnzkikiajxgt.jpg

So instead of sequence the page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ......, 100, it would need to be sequenced in a manner of 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5 ... 100, 99, in the new spread view.

Let me know if this makes sense, or if it is too much of technique difficulty!

martynas_b

Thank you for a great explanation.

This is quite uncommon feature.

Do you know more viewers (aside from the one you already mentioned) supporting anything like this? Can Acrobat Reader do that?

You can also try to rotate all pages to the left (you can do that from thumbnails sidebar) and then use horizontal scrolling. But of course that will rotate characters which can make reading difficult.

xfang39

Rotating the pages wouldn't help, as you observed, the characters will be rotated as well, making it even harder to read.

I haven't seen any other viewers handling this issue. However there are actually large quantity of ancient texts just got scanned and recently made available. It would be a great feature for people who are working on them.

The only other work around is to use PDF reader with right-left-top-bottom printing function:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u13292608/eckqaat6aa2eqjyqaixn.png

It will print two pages on one spread with the preferred sequence. Yet, that is a total change to the PDF format, and it creates more problems when we need to actually print one specific page, or need to read on mobile devices where only single page view is allowed, etc.

xfang39

Would it be a possible feature? Thank you! @martynas_b

wutilin

mac上的skim阅读器，Windows上的pdf补丁丁，adobe Acrobat（在首选项设置）都支持从右往左排序翻页，不需要用打印来改变文档，当然zotero能支持是最好的

xfang39

哇，实在太感谢了，skim好厉害！！！@wutilin

HashiToSaji

Is there any update on this feature?

The spread view with option of the left edge in the Zotero PDF viewer, like Acrobat's reading option of the Binding Left Edge.