managing annotated PDFs on multiple devices

janew1

I hope I'm not needlessly starting a new thread, but I am trying to come up with a workable way to handle PDFs with my PC laptop and Android devices. My former impromptu methods invevitably led to having multiple copies of a document, each with its own annotations, scattered in various places.

If anybody has a relatively straightforward way of using the cloud to retain and access unique copies of a file, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

I've been using Zed on my Android devices, BTW. Other suggestions would be welcome.

Thank you!

bwiernik

What exactly do you want to do with your PDFs on each device (read, annotate, add, delete, etc.)? You have a few options, depending on your needs.

janew1

On the Android devices, I just want to read and annotate. On the Windows 7 laptop, it's Acrobat (because I use it to do other things like repagination, OCR, etc.).

I don't actually use the laptop much for reading and annotating, and I wouldn't mind using something other than Acrobat for doing so.

bwiernik

On Android, the Zojo app is able to annotate Zotero attachments. It can be somewhat technically challenging to set up.

As an alternative, the ZotFile plugin for Zotero on the computer can automate sending pdfs to a specific Dropbox, etc. folder for annotation on your tablet and can then retrieve marked-up pdf and put it back in Zotero. I use this setup by having my tablet pdf reader sync with the Dropbox folder.

janew1

Thank you. I think I might have gotten Zojo working, or at least started. And, I had not realized how glacially slow Dropbox is when used for more than just sharing the occasional Word document. In 3 or 4 days, I'll be able to see if I've got it right :/

And I wish the instructions for these tools were a little bit less opaque. The method for setting up the dynamic link for Zojo, for example, seems to be described backwards. My method seems to have generated the desired result, but as I say I won't be able to find out until later in the week.

I tried Zotfile before, and you have said it works for you. Unfortunately, and although the instructions on the Zotfile website are written in clear language, I was unable to figure out the actual steps necessary to get it to work.

I was less motivated before, so maybe I'll be able to bring a little more perseverance to the task this time. But both methods certainly seem complicated.

janew1

I think I'm giving up on this. One, I can't really figure it out. Two, and probably more importantly, Dropbox is so slow the whole scheme isn't really feasible :(

Heckscher

I have started using Zotfile to put pdf attachments into a single folder on my Google Drive (it could be any cloud service), linked from the Zotero entries. Then I can read and annotate them in the cloud on my tablet. When I get back to my desktop I right click them and choose the Zotfile command "manage attachments / extract annotations" to bring the new annotations into a Zotero note (you can choose multiple entries at once, if you've worked on multiple files).

rdiaz02

@janew1:

You might want to use something that is not Dropbox. I use Syncthing (https://syncthing.net/) though it requires that at least two devices be online at the same time.

Also, you might want to check other discussions, such as https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/51234/zotable-a-modern-zotero-client-for-android/ for other possible routes.