Library organised as the Zotero library in my computer

laralam
Hello,

I have tried to find other discussions/documents on this but I could not find clear indications on how I could realise this.

I use zotero for firefox, and I use it to share libraries with groups. It would be very convenient for me to have all the .pdfs of the papers stored in my computer, following the structure (folders) that I decided in Zotero.

I have a Zotero library backup on my computer, but it is not organised in folders as is my zotero library. Is there a procedure to get a folder on my computer with the .pdf files stored following the organisation in folders equal to my Zotero library?

Thank you for your support.
  • adamsmith
    No, there is no good way to do this (among other things, because Zotero collections aren't folders, so it's not clear exactly how this would work, when, e.g., one item is in multiple collections.

    ZotFile does allow you to specify other criteria for moving attachments into a folder hierarchy, though:
    http://www.jlegewie.com/zotfile.html
  • laralam
    Thank you for the information, I would try that tool and see how I can improve the thing.

    It seems that the dowload botton does not work in the link you have suggested.
  • adamsmith
    Download here:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zotfile/
  • laralam
    Thank you, I have downloaded the addon and I want to make sure I am not missing any feature.
    Within ZotFile I have identified a folder where I want to save the pdfs of the papers I add to my library, and the re-naming of the .pdfs.
    For the group library all the .pdfs are still stored in the default zotero folder in my computer, but the files re-naming still works. When I transfer an object from my library to the group one, it takes the snapshot but does not transfer the .pdf (it does if I set up Zotfile to make a copy of the .pdf and not link it, in which case it saves it to the zotero default firefox folder and not to the one I have selected as destination folder in Zotfile).
    Also, I am not seeing the collections structured as in my Zotero, as .pdfs go simply in that folder that I have selected in the ZotFile options.
    I left the default options on saved files in the Zotero options because when I select the same folder I want to be selected, it does not recognise it as a Zotero folder and I am not sure this would cause some mess in the library.

    Now come my questions:
    1. is it possible to see collections as folder also in my computer?
    2. is it possible to select one folder where .pdfs are stored both for my library and for the group ones? This would avoid any troubles in backups and in files management and searching.

    Can you help?

    Thank you again!
  • adamsmith
    1. As I say above - no it's not. You can use other criteria - like author or year - for subfolders, but not collections

    2. No - links to files aren't supported in groups at all (i.e. you can't create them manually, either), as they would typically not work across computers.
  • laralam
    I see. Thank you for the information.
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