Upgrade StorageBest way to set-up zotero for a group
Hi, I am going to start working on a project together with another person. I will work 100% of time on this, while the other will be team leader and spend much less time on it, but will still need to access the bibliography.
Currently all PDfs are stored in a folder in the internal network, but in a confused way. I want to organize all the material and tried for a while Zotero and Mendeley, in order to decide. Even if Mendeley offers 2gb free for sync/storage online and it looks somehow easier, I decided to support open-source and try Zotero.
I'd appreciate some advices on how to set-up everything in order to work well:
- we cannot buy more than the 300mb storage at the moment (maybe later on, depending on funding), so I would like to avoid storing PDfs online. We already have more than 150mb and will grow.
- so we must use the folder in the internal network as local storage.
1) I'd need to have a create the same folder structure in zotero and ion the local disk, in order to have all PDfs available in local, indipendently from zotero's interface. A kind of sync between zotero and the local folder.
F. example: if I move an element in zotero from folder A to folder B, it should also move the same file in the local disk.
2) I noticed that if I move an element in zotero from folder A to folder B, a copy remains in folder A (and I end up with two times the same element). Is there a way to avoid this?
3) If I am browing online and I find a PDF report and want to add it to zotero, is there a way to automatically add the element BUT downloading the PDF to the local folder, instead of the remote folder?
I think these are the main issues to start with.
I'll thank you all in advance for the support, and hope that I'll succed in setting up a good Zotero environment here at office ;)
Currently all PDfs are stored in a folder in the internal network, but in a confused way. I want to organize all the material and tried for a while Zotero and Mendeley, in order to decide. Even if Mendeley offers 2gb free for sync/storage online and it looks somehow easier, I decided to support open-source and try Zotero.
I'd appreciate some advices on how to set-up everything in order to work well:
- we cannot buy more than the 300mb storage at the moment (maybe later on, depending on funding), so I would like to avoid storing PDfs online. We already have more than 150mb and will grow.
- so we must use the folder in the internal network as local storage.
1) I'd need to have a create the same folder structure in zotero and ion the local disk, in order to have all PDfs available in local, indipendently from zotero's interface. A kind of sync between zotero and the local folder.
F. example: if I move an element in zotero from folder A to folder B, it should also move the same file in the local disk.
2) I noticed that if I move an element in zotero from folder A to folder B, a copy remains in folder A (and I end up with two times the same element). Is there a way to avoid this?
3) If I am browing online and I find a PDF report and want to add it to zotero, is there a way to automatically add the element BUT downloading the PDF to the local folder, instead of the remote folder?
I think these are the main issues to start with.
I'll thank you all in advance for the support, and hope that I'll succed in setting up a good Zotero environment here at office ;)
2) is just a misunderstanding - it's not a copy, it's the same item, just in multiple collections at once
http://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#collections
3) All PDFs are saved locally, they only go online via sync. If you want to automatically move PDFs to a location outside of the Zotero storage folder, look at Zotfile.
You'll be able to achieve something pretty close to what you want working with Zotfile _but_ since that relies on links to files and local links don't currently work for groups this will only work if you share a user account. It won't work for a group.
For question 2), keep in mind that Zotero uses collections, not "folders" per se. Your items don't live in those collections. Rather, the collections are more like playlists or important tags. Just like a reference could have more than one tag, it can be in more than one collection.
There's really no drawback to having an item in more than one collection. It doesn't take up more space, for example. If, however, an item doesn't belong in the previous collection, you can simple right click on the item to "remove item from collection".
For 3), could you describe more about what you're trying to do? Some sort of backup utility (like SyncBack) might accomplish what you've outlined.
I understand that collections are simply tags/playlist, so it won't be possible to automatially maintant the same structure in the folder stored on local disks.
I am still confused (sorry) on the options relative to the storage of files, and what can I achieve with zotfile.
What is certain is that I must have all pdfs saved in the local disk, which is a shared network disk (so my colleague can access it because it's the same location (X:)). So I must change the zotero "Linked attachment base directory", I guess.
There is hopefully a better way, but now I can only think about this way to do the whole thing:
a) I set up a storage folder in the shared local disk: ZOTERO, and create sub-folders per main topics (e.g. Finance, Energy)
b) I find a pdf on internet that I want to save
c) I save the element in zotero and let Zotero automatically save
the pdf (but not syncing it online). The PDF will go to the zotero general folder that I set up in X:.
d) I manually move the PDF to the proper sub-folder (Finance).
e) Now Zotero cannot find the pdf, so I have to re-link it.
I am probably wrong and there is a better way to do it. This would be quite time consuming and my boss will never use it. I could do it but it's still quite time consuming, and I lost the advantage of using zotero to easily grab files from internet.
I am also afraid to depend so much on links, but I guess there is no other option.
Other alternatives are to use ZotFile to rename and move the files to one folder, which can be a network drive. Some users have had success with dropbox sync, but this is not without problems.
(http://www.zotero.org/support/sync#alternative_syncing_solutions)
If you truly want to maintain a separate folder structure for items, I recommend that you disable file imports in Zotero preferences. Then use the following three step procedure:
1) Import an item to Zotero. This will not download the file
2) Download the file manually and store it where you want to have it
3) Add the file as a link
Buy why do you want to maintain two separate archiving systems for the PDFs?
But yes, probably it's not worthy the effort, and if PDfs are well renamed even one single big folder could still be quite easy to surf in without front-end.
Summarizing: the one we described above is really the only procedure I could use if I want to maintain a folder structures. Quite manual, but it will do ther job.
If I give up on this and accept the one-folder solution, I could simply let zotero download and store files for me, without syncing them OR syncing them afterwards when I can purchase the online storage (or using a webdav).
Is it right?
Last (hopefuilly :D) question: I now have my PDFs stored locally. I suppose I can import all PDFs as link to files.90& of them are reports from organizations and institutions, not articles from journal. So it's not easy to get these elements from the internet with all metadata.
If "retrieve metadata for PDF" fails, I can only manually add the information or add the website and then link the fail, isn't it? Again no easy way to to this first-time importing job...
I was importing my pDFs and noticed that I could not find a way to tag more than one file at once (i.e. by selecting more than on document and add a tag to all selected docs), nor change the "Item type" for the same selectyed group of documents.
Am I blind or there is no such option in Zotero? I tried both in Zotero standalone and in firefox. Thanks.
Other batch edits aren't (like changing the item type of multiple items at once) aren't currently possible without coding (for that see: http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/javascript_api ), it's a planned feature, though, that's high on the list of priorities. May be in Zotero 4.2, if not there, then the version after.