PDFs won't open for editing in Zotero

Hi. I'm operating Mac OS Catalina and have recently downloaded Zotero + Chrome connector + Zotfile to my desktop. I'm testing and learning how to set up my workflow.

So far I have dragged and dropped my PDF into the centre pane - fabulous. The citation info is there, even without my having named the downloaded PDF. Wonderful!

The issue is I cannot now open the PDF. It keeps asking if I want to import the file into a new collection - which I don't since the file is already in the correct location. And that's it- stuck! Why does it keep doing that?

Oh, I've just managed to open the PDF via the Show file option (top right) - it seems a little longwinded. Is this the only way to open PDfs? I feel I'm missing something basic.

Also, in Zotero Preferences - Advanced, should I select Dropbox as my base directory? It's blank at the moment but I'm guessing that is important?

I'd like to be able to open and edit PDFs in Zotero, with or without the help of Zotfile? But I'm not sure if this is even possible - the info available seems to be conflicting.

Does this make sense? Thanks for any advice.
  • Can you take a screenshot or (even better) a screen recording of what you're describing with macOS's built-in Screenshot tool, upload it somewhere (e.g., Dropbox or Google Drive), and provide a link here?

    Opening a PDF in Zotero just requires double-click the parent or attachment item.

    If you're using Zotero 5.0.96.3, PDFs will open when you double-click them in your system's default PDF reader. There's a new built-in PDF reader in the Zotero beta.

  • Also, in Zotero Preferences - Advanced, should I select Dropbox as my base directory? It's blank at the moment but I'm guessing that is important?
    Depends. Are you using ZotFile to move your PDFs to Dropbox & link? Then yes; otherwise no.
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