Zotero/zotfile setup for extracting highlighted content from PDF's

Dear zotero/zotfile users and devs,

I have a question regarding Zotfile, extracting highlighted content from PDF's with a correct reference sounds extremely good.

I followed the setup instructions for zotfile at github, but nevertheless it does not seem to work.

My current set up would be a win10 pc , adobe acrobat for PDF files , I use zotero connector for firefox to extract bibliographical information with pdf to zotero standalone (5.0.22) .

However, since I want to keep my 'firefox/download' folder clean and ordered , my zoteroconnector saves to the default location 'C:\Users\\Zotero'. I have tried to set up zotfile to the same folder , which did not work.

I also tried 'C:\Users\\Zotero\storage' but still with no results.

Moreover it remains a bit unclear to me, how exactly I should highlight the PDF's attached to my zotero references in order for zotfile to extract the highlighted fragments as 'notes'. Does this happen when I save the PDF ? Do I need to update the citation in zotero standalone ?

Personally I fear it might have something to do with the default zotero standalone storage location storing every file in a different folder.

But since I have had bad experiences in the past using the download folder as my zotero storage location, I am reluctant to set it up like this again ( I hate to have a mix of non work related PDF's with meaningless numerical names , mixed up with equally meaninglessly named work-related pdf's , additionally mixed with pictures, .exe files, etc.) , even more so since I don't see how I could "translate" my already stored library into the firefox/download folder.

So if any of you might have any advice on how I could make this work , it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks and kind regards !

  • You're misunderstanding the ZotFile source folder -- this is for _attaching_ files that are not already in Zotero (which is why it's typically the download folder). Given that, it should most definitely not be the Zotero storage folder (as files in there are already attached to Zotero items.

    You also don't need the source folder to extract annotations. The two are completely unrelated. Extracting annotations works by annotating a PDF in Zotero using a standard PDF readers (such as Adobe Acrobat, FoxIt, or PdfXchange), saving the annotated version, and then running manage attachments --> Extract annotations from Zotfile.
  • Ok , thank you so much, this was exactly the answer I needed.
    Have a nice day and thanks again !
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