Saving PDF files in only one programs folder

ubfuberlin

Hi Fellowes,

yesterday I was teaching a Zotero workshop. There was a special question about the storage of PDF files in the program folder of Zotero. A student wasn't satisfied about saving a new PDF file everytime in a new file folder with unrecognizable folder names. The student had just worked before with Citavi. If you save a PDF file in Citavi there is just only one folder in the Citavi folder where all PDF files are saved. The student was asking if it's possible to do it the same way in Zotero? I don't think it's possible, but I am not 100 % sure ...

Best regards
Marc

dstillman

Stored files are stored in an internal structure that lets Zotero manage them — and sync them — without their ever getting disconnected or lost, and without naming conflicts between files, duplicates, or files in different libraries. That's the advantage. It's still possible to drag the files straight from Zotero to a filesystem folder to copy them out, and it's also possible to drag them to some programs (e.g., some email clients) directly. You can also always right-click on an attachment in Zotero and choose "Show File" to reveal it in the file manager. If you want a flat list of stored files in Zotero, you can create a saved search in your file manager that just shows all PDFs within the Zotero data directory. There are more ways to find, tag, rename, and organize files within Zotero than in a file manager.

If you really want to store files externally, you can use linked files, but that prevents Zotero from managing them and makes it easier to move/rename them outside of Zotero, so they're more likely to get disconnected or orphaned. (That tends to be a common complaint among programs that do that by default.)