Help for beginner please

Nhanderson · November 18, 2020

I’m starting a new job and will be using Zotero for the first time. I will have a MacBook Pro but would like to use a separate device for reading and annotating PDF’s. Options are iPad or surface book. Which would be best and please can I have instructions as how I achieve what I want to do (e.g. what apps do I need/what is the process). I just can’t figure it out. Thank you.

bwiernik · November 18, 2020

I recommend the Surface. Because it runs full Windows, you can just install the Zotero desktop program on it, which will give you the best experience currently.

dstillman · November 18, 2020

@Nhanderson: For an iPad, you can currently use the ZotFile plugin to sync PDFs back and forth via Dropbox or similar. An official Zotero iPad app is coming that will make it easier to access your PDFs from an iPad.

Nhanderson · November 18, 2020

Thank you bwiernik. And if I annotate on the surface in a pdf annotator, how do I get the annotated version of the pdf back in to zotero? And is there a pdf annotator you would recommend for windows- most of those seem to be for iOS. Really grateful for the help.

Nhanderson · November 18, 2020

Interesting about zotfile. Are there clear instructions anywhere as to the steps to follow, I’m a complete novice. Thank you.

dstillman · November 18, 2020

The ZotFile site has instructions:

http://zotfile.com/#syncing-pdf-attachments-with-your-ipad-or-android-tablet

Nhanderson · November 18, 2020

Thank you for the link

adamsmith · November 18, 2020

You can just use Acrobat Reader to annotate PDFs on Windows, and saving the annotated PDF will ensure it syncs. (There are a bunch of other options like Foxit, PDF Xchange, etc., that all do basically the same, but Acrobat is really a pretty nice & reliable app these days)

Paul_G · January 8, 2021

I would suggest Foxit as I find it has more free feature available. Additionally, if you are going for a Surface, I would suggest to get a pen and get Drawboard PDF, pen annotation are really satisfactory and natural!

maryvanlee · September 14, 2022

Question for this group — when you annotate in your PDF using Acrobat or Drawboard and then import into Zotera, does the program maintain your annotations? Sorry if this is a newb question.

poettli · September 14, 2022

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/annotations_in_database#interacting_with_embedded_annotations