Upgrade Storage[Critical UX Issue] Unwanted Screenshot Annotations from Drawings in Vertical Chinese PDFs (Request
Dear Zotero Team,
I'm writing to report a significant usability problem in Zotero 7's built-in PDF reader that severely impacts workflows for East Asian language researchers.
Core Problem
Any graphical annotation (lines, rectangles, highlights, arrows, or freehand drawings) is automatically converted into a screenshot-based note. This behavior:
Creates extremely long, unreadable screenshot images when used in vertically typeset documents (e.g., Classical Chinese/Taiwanese Traditional Chinese PDFs), as the screenshot captures the entire column width.
Generates visually cluttered and bloated notes that cannot be searched, edited, or meaningfully organized.
Wastes storage space with redundant image files.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u10517527/51iv2fomtni10r7uqxd5.png
Why This Matters for East Asian PDFs
Vertical text is inherently wide (1 character height ≈ 10–20 horizontal characters).
A simple line/rectangle annotation forces a screenshot spanning 1000+ pixels in height but only 50px in width.
These "thermal receipt-like" screenshots dominate the notes panel, requiring excessive scrolling and offering zero textual value.
Requested Solution
Please add an option to DISABLE the automatic conversion of graphical drawings to screenshot annotations. Ideal implementations could include:
☑️ Preference setting: "Save graphical annotations as vector overlays only (do not create note items)".
⚙️ Tool-level control: Per-tool toggle (e.g., disable "Save to Notes" for Rectangle/Line/Highlight tools).
♻️ Alternative: Save drawings as text-based markups (e.g., [Rectangle at position (x1,y1)-(x2,y2)]) instead of images.
Why Text Annotations Aren't Enough
We deliberately avoid drawing tools, but accidents happen:
Misclicks on crowded toolbars
Unintentional drags while selecting text
Lag-induced cursor jumps
→ One slip instantly creates a useless screenshot note that must be manually hunted down and deleted.
Additional Context
Reproducible: 100% consistent in vertical/chinese-japanese-korean (CJK) PDFs.
Plugins aren't solutions: Workarounds (Better Notes, Zotero PDF Translate) help manage notes but don't prevent screenshot generation.
Prioritization plea: This makes Zotero's annotation tools nearly unusable for scholars working with pre-modern East Asian texts.
Thank you for considering this critical refinement. Supporting non-Latin script workflows demonstrates Zotero's commitment to global academia.
Your screenshot shows the image annotation tool. The entire point is to create an image annotation. If you have some other example, you can provide it, but this is working as intended.
My apologies if my previous explanation was not sufficiently clear. I would like to elaborate on a specific challenge I am facing with PDF annotations.
The issue arises from how PDF software handles annotations generated by drawing tools (e.g., lines, rectangles). When I use these tools to mark a section of text, the program automatically creates a corresponding annotation in the sidebar. This annotation typically includes an image preview—a screenshot—of the area I marked.
For most users who read standard, horizontally-oriented texts, this functionality is perfectly acceptable. The screenshot generated is usually of a reasonable, proportional size.
However, for scholars like myself who work extensively with vertically-oriented East Asian classical texts, this implementation presents a significant aesthetic and practical problem. When I mark a short phrase in a vertical column of text, the resulting screenshot preview in the annotation pane becomes excessively long and narrow. This makes the entire annotation list look cluttered, unappealing, and difficult to navigate, as I illustrated in the image I shared previously.
Therefore, the ideal solution would be for the software to make a clear distinction between a "Marking" and an "Annotation".
Here is what I mean by this distinction:
A "Marking" should be defined as a purely visual, on-page indicator. When I perform an action like drawing a line or a rectangle, the shape should appear directly on the PDF content itself. Crucially, however, it should not generate a new, separate entry in the annotation sidebar. Its purpose is simply to be a visual cue on the page.
An "Annotation", in contrast, would be an action explicitly intended to create a comment, a note, or an extractable piece of data. Actions like adding a "sticky note" or highlighting text with an associated comment would fall into this category, and they would logically appear in the annotation sidebar for management.
In essence, I am proposing the ability to use drawing tools for simple, non-intrusive markup on the page itself, without having these actions populate and clutter the formal list of annotations.
If you're selecting text, you should use the highlight tool. If that's not working properly on vertical text, you should report that and link to an example PDF where it happens.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u10517527/k84dwwt8fpz0l807lku2.png