Does sync function also sync the index data?

I use Zotero on more than one computer. If I rebuild the index on first (primary) computer, sync it, and then go to a second computer and sync that, will the second computer get the newly rebuilt index?

When I rebuilt the index on my primary computer, the .sqlite file size increased considerably. I am guessing this is simply because I added over 1300 PDFs to the index in this rebuild. And this also tells me that the index is stored within the .sqlite.

However, when I sync the first and second computer, the .sqlite on the second computer does not increase in size. Do I need to change any settings?

Or, maybe I should just copy-paste the Zotero folder contents from first to second computer? The second computer may not have ALL the PDFs that exist on first computer. But I still want it to have the index (if that's even possible).
  • This is what full-text syncing is for. You don't need to have the PDFs on each computer.

    Make sure full-text syncing is enabled in the prefs. Syncing happens gradually, and indexing happens in the background on idle, so you won't get the full index immediately.

    You can of course just copy the entire data directory instead, but it's not necessary.
  • edited July 1, 2016
    Thanks, Dan. I should have reached that conclusion myself. Not sure why I thought it will try to sync the PDF. But the file sync options are right below and separate!

    I was actually plesantly surprised how quickly it rebuilt my index. It cleared the entire index and started from scratch. And set very large totals character and page numbers so every word and page is indexed. Zotero took maybe 30 minutes to index about 1934 items, of which about 1700 or more are PDFs. It was left with 123 unindexed items which might be non-OCRed PDFs.

    What files types, other than PDF, are indexed? Word, Powerpoint, Excel, html?

    What might be causing the 2 partially indexed files it is showing?
  • What files types, other than PDF, are indexed? Word, Powerpoint, Excel, html?
    HTML files and plain-text files
  • Thanks, Dan. Any plans of expanding file types in future?
  • edited July 6, 2016
    So then if i do full-text search on the website + tag limit, shouldn't Zotero find the same number of items as when I do a saved search on the same tag + quick search in the desktop interface? Instead, I find 35 top items online and 45 top items in standalone. Why?
  • Any plans of expanding file types in future?
    I suspect we'll be able to search Office documents in the future, yes, but not until the next major version after 5.0 (using NPM modules in Electron).
    So then if i do full-text search on the website + tag limit, shouldn't Zotero find the same number of items as when I do a saved search on the same tag + quick search in the desktop interface?
    Search on the website 1) along with full-text content currently only searches title, creator, and year and 2) is currently a phrase search only, so those might be affecting the results you're seeing. If you think something else isn't working right, start a new thread and we can take a look. The client and server use different underlying technologies for full-text searching, so there might be some other subtle differences.
  • edited July 6, 2016
    1) along with full-text content currently only searches title, creator, and year
    What's full-text then? Attachments only? Does it include notes and tags?
  • Full-text content means attachment content — content from indexed PDF, HTML, and plain-text files.
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