Zotfile: export annotations as markdown-formatted text to the system clipboard

jbobrowski

I would like to be able to copy the text of a note created in Zotfile and paste it in Obsidian. Unfortunately, I don't see such an option. Do you know of any way other than saving to disk and opening in an external editor? Maybe there is a plugin that would speed this up?

dstillman

As I mentioned in your other thread, ZotFile no longer extracts annotations.

But annotations added to notes by Zotero 6 are copied to the clipboard as Markdown for plain text. Obsidian defaults to rich-text pasting, though, so see this comment. There are also various Zotero integration plugins for Obsidian.

jbobrowski

I don't think I fully understood the answer,

what I really need to know is whether it is possible to display the sources of a note in Markdown format in the Zotero side panel.

At the moment the only standard way is to save the file to disk, and open it in an external application.

Thanks for the link, it doesn't quite solve my problem though.

dstillman

As I say, Zotero copies notes as Markdown when using Quick Copy. You can drag or paste into a plain-text editor to see.

See my answer in the linked thread for Obsidian specifically, but we have nothing to do with that.

jbobrowski

The matter clarified: I checked that after a Quick Copy from Zotero, when in Obsidian (Options -> Editor -> Default editing mode) was set 'Live preview' the content pasting with removed the linking. Changing the indicated option to 'Source mode' all pasted correctly.

Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. We can consider this thread closed.

kerimfriedman

@dstillman Sorry, I feel really stupid. I want to do the same thing as @jbobrowski but can't figure it out. I don't use Obsidian, but Logseq. However, the problem I'm having is I can't figure out how to use Quick Copy to copy the annotations I made. I tried reading that thread, but I feel like I'm missing a step. Let me walk you through what I've done:

1. I read a PDF, highlighting text as I read in the Zotero PDF reader
2. Configured quick copy to copy to use Markdown
3. I can't figure out how to then use quick copy to get my annotations instead of the citation?
4. I also tried using export, but the exported file did not contain my annotations.

dstillman

@kerimfriedman: Depends what exactly you're trying to do, but you can create notes from your annotations and use Quick Copy to copy the note as Markdown. You can also just use Cmd/Ctrl-C to copy individual annotations to the clipboard as Markdown straight from the PDF reader.

kerimfriedman

I see. That explains it. I was missing that step!