Accessing and modifying pdf's outside zotero

sheilakate

I have found where the pdf's are saved by default in Zotero, however, if I open them, I do not see any annotations (highlights, comments) I have made in zotero to the pdf's. Further, if I update the files outside zotero using Adobe and save them, these are not synced into Zotero.

I followed the help files and made sure sync was set up properly, so I don't believe that is the issue. I paid for extra storage so I would have everything in one place, but now think that may not be helpful if I cannot modify the files outside of the Zotero system.

Is there something I'm missing? Can I not modify the files outside the system, even if I'm modifying them directly in the Zotero file saved locally?

enozkan

Zotero does not save annotations in the pdf file (for reasons explained here):

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/annotations_in_database

You can export a (new) pdf file with Zotero annotations written to it easily. Annotations created with a different pdf reader can also be imported into Zotero's database. Annotations written into the PDF by another program are visible in Zotero's reader, too. So, I don't know why you don't see them, unless you used another program that also writes annotations to a separate database (like Zotero does).

It may not be practical to use Zotero and another program as a pdf reader on the same pdf back-and-forth. My suggestion is either use Zotero's pdf reader or an external one for reading/annotations. You can set your selection in Zotero Settings > General > Open PDFs using...

(By the way, the location where PDFs are saved by Zotero is no mystery. Just right click on the pdf in the center pane in the Zotero app, and choose "Show in Finder" or its Windows equivalent.)