Zotero, the native Android App, and Emacs pdf annotation in the computer

rdiaz02
edited March 26, 2024
Dear All,

I want to make sure I am not missing anything obvious regarding the options I have.

Summary
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Using the native Android app makes sense if one will do most of the PDF reading/annotation, in Android and in the computer, using Zotero's built-in PDF reader. The Android app is not the best choice if one plans to do substantial PDF annotation and reading in the computer using other PDF editors.

Context:
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I've been using Zotero for nine years. On my computer (Linux), I use Emacs (with the pdf-tools package) to open and edit pdfs. I have not switched to using Zotero's built-in PDF editor. Why? a) Because I prefer to do most of my work inside Emacs; b) because I keep my notes in org-mode files [1]; c) because I often access my library and PDFs from Emacs by opening the library exported as bibtex; d) because I keep these PDFs automatically synced with an Android tablet (next) where I do much of my PDF annotation and reading. Crucially, Emacs' pdf-tools adds the annotations in the PDF themselves.

I also have an Android tablet, where I carry my whole library of PDFs and the Zotero db. I export the Zotero DB (automatically on file change) to a format that an old Android program, Referey[2], can understand, and I send it (automatically, via syncthing) to the tablet[3]. In the Android tablet I can search my full Zotero library, browse its collections with their full hierarchy, etc, etc. In the tablet, I read and annotate PDFs using programs that add the annotations to the PDF themselves.

I am very excited about, and thankful for, Zotero's native Android application (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/110371/available-for-beta-testing-zotero-for-android/p1). However, the developers have made it clear that, for the Android app, they "(...) have no plans to support opening of PDFs externally beyond exporting." (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/455807/#Comment_455807) (see that comment and subsequent ones for additional details and reasons).

Thus, I think I only have two options:


Options
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1. If using the Android app is important enough to me, stop using Emacs to do PDF annotation, and use Zotero's built-in PDF editor. I can continue opening the PDFs associated with an entry by making a call from Emacs[4], but I'd be annotating, reading, etc, using Zotero's PDF reader[5], not Emacs.

2. If using Emacs for PDF annotation and reading is important enough to me, forego using the Android app[6].

If I understand correctly those are the only two options, and those are the terms of the trade-off. Am I missing something? Of course, it is me who needs to decide what is more important :-) ; my question here is whether I am missing something about the available options and terms of the trade-off.

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[1] This setup has the side benefit, for me, that I can easily ripgrep, in a single call, over notes on papers, extracted highlights from papers, and the rest of my collection of notes.

[2] https://github.com/kleinkm/Referey

[3] The code and details about setup are available here: https://github.com/rdiaz02/Zotero-to-Referey.

[4] Call zotero like this: zotero --url zotero://open-pdf/library/items/ITEM?FILENAME.

[5] This means that I'll have to alter much of my note-taking and note-searching protocol (and I won't be able to open the PDF inside Emacs ---unless I use EXWM as window manager). There are ways of integrating Zotero's PDF reader notes with org-roam (e.g., https://www.riccardopinosio.com/blog/posts/zotero_notes_article.html#zotero-note-export) but the setup is very different from my current one.

[6] If I go this route, of course, there are different options. I can continue using my current setup, which I've used for almost 10 years, but is not ideal, or maybe try to hack or find some other way to use my Zotero library in the Android tablet. The key issue, though, is that this would imply not using the official Android app.
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