how to email the pdf/doc documents in Zotero to a friend using GMAIL

stonewh6

I have stored some pdf/doc documents in Zotero, and then I modified them (I understand that the latest version is stored in the Zotero folder 'storage'). It could be difficult to find the complex directory of theses document under the 'storage' folder. How can I use GMAIL to send these documents efficiently?

Many thanks and look forward to hearing from you

fbennett

Click on "Compose" in GMail to begin drafting your message. In Zotero, open the item and click on the attachment. In the right pane, click on "Show File". This will call up a view of the directory in which the item is located. Drag the file into the GMail attachments area, and it (the whole attachments area) will turn green. Release the item, and it will attach to your message.

To cut out further steps, you could dig into the GMail API and script it, I guess. But the above is what I do.

[Edit: Corrected "View File" to read "Show File", as pointed out by Jon Rubin below.]

ajlyon

This is a potential are for improvements in Zotero drag-and-drop, though. If the GMail attachments area accepts files, perhaps changes could be made to allow PDFs to be dragged from the library pane directly to the attachments area?

fbennett

That would certainly be more convenient. In fact, the area does activate (turns green) when an attachment is dragged from the center panel; it just doesn't seem to upload when dropped.

Jon Rubin

That works for me on a Windows 7 box. I can drag the attachment straight on to an email in gmail. Which now I know it, is really handy! Haven't tested linux - though I'm guessing this won't work as drag and drop is still broken?
[oh and don't you want to click 'show file' not 'view file' to display the folder where the file is]

stonewh6

fbennett, thank you so much for the kind help. It works well and is very helpful. Have a nice weekend:)

fbennett

@Jon: It works under Linux also. In fact, that's where I first stumbled across it.

Jon Rubin

Hi Frank - ah, thought so, we were talking at cross purposes. In Windows, you can actually drag straight from the Zotero pane to Gmail (which is great because it's one less step). On linux you can't , you have to open a folder and then you can drag from the folder to gmail.
Hopefully, when drag and drop gets fixed in lunux with firefox 4, this might work too.

philadamsnet

You also cannot on OS X (I'm on 10.10.1). It would be super cool if you could! And if there was a way to remove formatting when you drag-and-drop the citation (dragging on the Zotero entry, rather than just the file) that'd also be sweet.

You *can* search for the paper in Spotlight and drag as an attachment from right there in the Spotlight results pane.a

cassiobarth

@philadamsnet, I'm using Yosemite now (10.10.2),and the problem with the 2-steps drag-and-drop is the same.

On the other hand, the way the PDFs are stored are quite hard to handle... (well, spotlight is one option).
It's annoying to seek for the files and folders outside Zotero (at least in OS X ...) and each document has a unique folder with a "JIOW724HWIE" name... so, if you want to send multiple files or folders to your e-mail, it's kind a hell.

PDFs could be synchronized whit the folders we create inside zotero. Such folders could have the same name inside and outside the software and the pdf files could be indexed in a easier way to the user..

adamsmith

every OS has a virtual folder option. On Mac they're called Smart Folders. If you want all of your Zotero PDFs in a single folder, that's trivially easy to set up:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH19078?viewlocale=en_US

ZotFile can, if you really want to, mirror your collection structure outside of Zotero, btw.

cassiobarth

Thanks @adamsmith

"ZotFile can, if you really want to, mirror your collection structure outside of Zotero, btw"

How can I do this?

adamsmith

zotfile is fully documented at http://zotfile.com/ any questions about that, start a new thread.

cheflo

The drag and drop behaviour is not working on Ubuntu 15.04. I tried dragging pdf attachments from Zotero running in Firefox to gmail running in either firefox or chrome. In firefox, the message area in gmail lights up as it does when dragging a file, but nothing happens when dropping the pdf attachment. In chrome an html paragraph is pasted into the gmail and no file is attached.

afelice

Hi, I was just stumbling over this, since I tried to drag and drop into outlook web interface in chorme, where it does not work as I was used to it in gmail in chrome. Any suggestions what could be the reason, what could i do? As for a workaround I drag and drop files onto the desktop/folder and then to outlook from there.