Link to stored copy inside "storage" folder

poettli
Hello,

If we consider English as the default language for my library, I sometimes have a reference in a foreign language. In that case, I consider the original language as the main reference (OV), with a stored copy of the file as attachment ("storage/XXXXX/attachment.pdf"). I duplicate this entry with the English translation (EV), with a link to the file "storage/XXXXX/attachment.pdf".

I am working with two computers, both with a local copy of all the attachments (for offline work). However, in order to keep all the links working, I had to set "linked attachment base directory" and "data directory location" the same, which is not recommended.

Is there any safe way to have 2 entries (OV/EV) sharing the same attachment without duplicating it?
  • dstillman
    You should never link to files within the data directory (and Zotero should really try to prevent that). You can use the Related Item feature to create a link between items.
  • poettli
    edited March 18, 2019
    @dstillman Thank you. But in this case, I cannot directly access the file from EV, which is quite annoying. I have first to go to the related item (here OV) or am I missing something?
  • dstillman
    Well, you can click on the related item in the Related tab to get to the other item and then double-click on that.

    This just isn't a common thing that people want to do — I can't recall anyone else ever asking about it — so there's not a particularly elegant solution here.

    But I'm actually not sure I even know what you mean. If it's actually a reference for a foreign-language version of something, it wouldn't make sense to have the same PDF attached, and using a related item would seem like the appropriate solution. What exactly do mean by "reference in a foreign language"?
  • poettli
    For example, I have two entries for the same article: one entry in Japanese and one in English (translation of title, authors, journal...). I attach a store copy of the article to the Japanese entry. But if I do the same for the English entry, it will also duplicate the file locally. I would like to be able, whenever I double-click the Japanese or the English entry, to open the article. That's why I used links to be able to perform so. But I also can change this way of using Zotero.
  • dstillman
    I would like to be able, whenever I double-click the Japanese or the English entry, to open the article.
    Yeah, there's not a supported way of doing other than duplicating the file or using linked files instead of stored files.

    If you're dealing with multilingual sources, you may want to look into Juris-M, the third-party fork of Zotero that's designed for that purpose.
  • poettli
    @dstillman I prefer to keep Zotero, remove the links and change a bit the way I use Zotero with multilingual sources. Thank you for your help
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