Keyboard shortcut for drag-and-drop of PDF into Zotero library on macOS?

mhucka · January 15, 2022

I sometimes end up with PDFs downloaded to my computer. If I drag and drop a PDF file from the Finder to "My Library" in the Zotero 5.0.97 desktop application, Zotero (wonderfully) almost always can find the relevant metadata, create a new record, and attach the PDF to the new record.

How can I make a keyboard shortcut for this operation, so that I don't have to mouse around and literally drag and drop the PDF?

qqbb · January 17, 2022

The Zutilo add-on provides some related shortcuts. See Attachment functions and ZotFile functions -> "Attach new file".

On Windows, you can drag, Shift+drag, or Ctrl+Shift+drag, which will "copy", "move", or "link" attachments, respectively. ZotFile's "Attach new file" function is a "move" operation.

Here's an open Zotero issue that seems related:
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1169

mhucka · January 17, 2022

Thanks, especially for the link to the open issue on GitHub. It sounds like Zotero may have a way of creating new records from PDFs in the future.

I've also tried to automate the drag-and-drop process using Keyboard Maestro, but have not been successful. The Keyboard Maestro operation works (i.e., picking a file in the Finder and dragging it over to "My library" in Zotero) but it has no effect. Either I don't quite have the "drop" implemented correctly in Keyboard Maestro, or else the Zotero app doesn't behave as expected with a file dropped on it via whatever mechanism Keyboard Maestro uses.