"virtual" PDF page number

michaa7

I'm just integrating *manual* work in zotero. (I'm new to zotero. I felt the need ot search for SW support because the manual paperwork was about to get out of hand)

One consequence is that I need to integate excerpts from books in zotero, where excepts are Libreoffice notes. I may split my notes into different pages which may look like page 3, 7-10, 12, 17, 29, 32-34 which as a PDF would be pages 1-11, unfortunately.

This would lead to wrong page numbers of citations. Is there a way to tell zotero to skip non existing pages. Or how would you recommend to integrate those potential citations in zotero?

michaa7

Ok, let me rephrase:

I understand how to mark parts of a PDF as a potential citation.

But how would I do this if I do not have any digital copy but the printed book only. How would I add all the potential citations to my bibliography (including the respective page numbers)?

michaa7

I found an old posting from 2008 addressing this issue, and this is what I'm speaking about:

"I know I sound as a broken record since this has been discussed before, but there are still scholars (historians, for example) who usually work with physical books, old newspapers, etc. For these analog documents, there should be an easy way to enter and cite page numbers for notes (and quotes). Zotero shows somewhat of a bias toward digital sources when interface for entering page numbers is not planned, while analogous interface for digital documents--annotations and highlights--is continuously improved. "

From: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/12128/#Comment_12128

This directly describes the wall I see when I try to work with physical books and other analog documents and zotero. So, please, tell me this has been addressed somewhen during the last 17 years and I am only to *whatever* to find how to do it?

adamsmith

I'm a bit confused by what exactly you are trying to do, but if you extract an annotation into a note, you can modify the page number (click on "Edit Citation", then on the actual citation).

You can also directly add citations into notes if you're manually typing a quote rather than extracting it (using the insert citation button in notes). Those citations can include page numbers the same way citations in word processor documents can: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage#customizing_citations

michaa7

I have 95% physical books, 5% digital documents. I am still in the process of figuring out how to make use of zotero and how to include handwriten and libreoffice notes and excerpts as references to books of my bibliography. To be forced by zotero to structure my biblioghraphy and to structure what I want to use it for is the help I need! But I need a work*flow*, too.

As I understand it the easiest way for a quote from a *digital* document is to highlight the part I want to quote. It then would automagicly have the right page number included, the one of the PDF. I would not need to ever care about the page number as zotero is aware of it.

Now I could (and want) to attach my Libreoffice.pdf notes as a child item to a book ( of which I only have a physical copy) of my bibliography. As the LO-notes are not the complete book, but only interesting parts of it, the PDF page numbers of this child item are irrelevant. The relevant page numbers are written down at the end of each citation.
Now I want to highlight each single citation within this document and give it the actual page number of the book it came from AND NEVER EVER care about the page number.

This would be consistent with the workflow of digital documents. For me it is totaly confusing that I can't work with physical documents in the same way which in my opinion is the most obvious way it should work. But as it does not work the obvious way I am wondering whether or not my approach to zotero is the rightone. Adding the page numbers when adding effectively the qoutes into the manuscript is somewhat counterintuitive and error prone!

For someone using physical souces only just for once this may not be such a problem, but an annoyance only. For me it will be the main work*flow*. That's such a basic requirement that I therefore make such an effort to figure out how this could work *for me*.

Thanks.

adamsmith

I tried to answer that above: you can annotate the LO.pdf files, extract the annotations into a note and then adjust the page numbers in the note.

(FWIW, I don't think most people, whether they work digitally or not, actually use workflows where they never worry about a page number again and instead add them using the word processor add-on, but if you want to avoid that, the above is the way to do so).

michaa7

I understood.

But it is double work. Which is why it would enhance the workflow significantly if the developpers could make it possible to add the page after highlighting it in the annotation: highlight -> menu -> page -> page n° X (obviously of the parent document).

You made your point, I'll see ... but I detest it already.

EDIT:
Imagine: I highlight the quote (without the page n°). I highlight 30 quotes without page n°. I then one by one extract the annotiation to notes but I will see the page n° in the pdf only, not in the annotation.
...

I wil try it out but .... I 'm very unhappy with this "flow".

EDIT2:
How in your opinion would be the most efficent workflow for *new* quotes/citations. I read a book and create zotero notes with page numbers, right? This would be ok for me.
My problem is with all my quotes I have altready in LO-files.

Edit3:
How would I reliably distighuish notes(my ideas) from notes(quotes/citation) ?