Create Zotero Item and Note from Selection

Hello everybody,

I read on this page (https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-and-firefox-faq/) that there is a planned feature that allows to select text on a webpage and create a zotero item with this text as a note. I think this used to work with the old zotero. Now I tried this with the current version and it works on some pages (notably on zotero.org) but on most other pages it fails. I assume the feature is not yet fully developed. Is this something we can expect anytime soon? Because I find it extremely usefull, since I often quote webpages. Or is there a smooth work-around? Of cource I can save the page to zotero (with snapshot), then select text and copy&paste it to notes, but I would appreciate a fast, non-distractive way to do this. Acctually, if it should be possible to incorporate this in the development of the feature, it would be nice if the notes that I create by selecting text and "right-click -> save as note" that come from the same webpage are stored as child-notes to a single zotero item. Because I tried it on a zotero-page and every note was attached to its own zotero-item...

Kind regards,
Moritz
  • edited October 29, 2018
    I did some more research into this topic and found there is a good solution for this workflow. It has been described here:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/72976/plugin-for-converting-website-snapshot-to-pdf

    in short:
    * convert webpage to pdf with addon 'Print friendly & pdf'
    * drag&drop the downloaded pdf from the download-bar into zotero
    * zotero generates the metatag-item
    * open pdf from within zotero, annotate it
    *use zotfile to extract annotations (which will create a note with the annotated text and backlinks to the pdf)


    In my opinion in most cases the webpage-to-pdf-workflow is the better alternative, but I think if you browse the web and just want to collect bits of information, like one paragraph of text per website, the functionality of a selection-to-note-workflow would still be nice...
  • Can you provide an example URL where "Create Zotero Item and Note from Selection" fails for you?
  • Yes, here is one example where it doesn't work:

    http://www.wasserkraft-deutschland.de/
    I selected some text on the main page and right-click -> Zotero-Connector -> Save to Zotero --- and then there is no option "Create Zotero item...", instead I notice a little square in the top right corner of the context menu "Save to Zotero" .
    I made a screenshot that I am happy to provide if you tell me your emailadress.

    It works fine on this page though:
    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/10/wildlife-watch-news-china-rhino-tiger-legal/

    At the moment I am working on a Windows machine with Firefox Version 63.0 (64 Bit) and I have Zotero 5.0.57 running. But I tried yesterday on my home computer which is a MacBook (don't know the system details by heart) and it also didn't work...

    Thank you for your help and please let me know if I can provide you further information!
  • edited November 1, 2018
    Bonjour
    J'ai exactement le même problème avec firefox 63.0.1 ou Chrome sous Windows 10. Quelqu'un a-t’il la solution?
    merci
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