Zotero integration with DevonThink

jasonlustig
edited June 5, 2019
Does anyone use Zotero in conjunction with DevonThink? I use Zotero for my citations and PDFs, but keep my reading notes and archival documents in DevonThink and was curious if anyone has any experience with integrating the two, what works for you, what is frustrating, etc.
  • jarrodbcall
    I know this is an older post, but did you ever find a solution? I am hoping to do something similar (I am a current Zotero user but am a new DevonThink user). Thanks!
  • rpallred
    Everything I'm finding is old--anyone find anything that works with the current version?
  • b.n.lawrence
    I've been using both for ages, but the only integration that works easily is to get pdf files _from_ zotero into DTP. I don't do anything clever (and can't remember the details, but I must have googled it).

    The thing I want to do though, is get information FROM DTP to zotero. The use case is reading stuff on an ipad, i find something new, I load it into DTP, and then it syncs on the desktop, I want to automate the load _in_ to zotero ...
  • b.n.lawrence
    I have the same question open in the devonthink forums: https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/from-devonthink-to-zotero/61297
  • mhucka
    Apropos this topic, which I only now discovered, I wanted to mention a utility program I wrote to help with Zotero-DEVONthink interaction. It's described in this forum posting: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/86578/a-new-tool-to-write-zotero-select-links-into-pdf-files#latest
  • mhucka
    Regarding the direction from DEVONthink to Zotero: I'm sorry to say I've only worked on the Zotero to DEVONthink direction. My approach to using the two has been to put papers always in Zotero first, and use Zotero only to manage the bibliographic data and generate bibtex; everything else, including reading notes and annotating PDF files, I do in DEVONthink.

    DEVONthink think can index external folders, so by indexing Zotero's PDF folder, it's possible to view PDFs in DEVONthink and use DEVONthink's excellent PDF reading/annotation interface to mark up the PDF, and have the changes stored directly in the PDF that is kept in Zotero.

    Developing a habit of always turning to Zotero to ingest articles, instead of adding them to DEVONthink first, was not difficult for me. That said, I think if you were only looking for a way to send files from DEVONthink to Zotero, it probably wouldn't be difficult to implement. However, watch out for the fact that it probably wouldn't work on iOS. (Example: DEVONthink to Go for iOS does not have smart rule support at all, so it wouldn't be possible to use that in service of this goal.)
  • b.n.lawrence
    Thanks @mhucka!

    I have been using zotero for many years in the way you describe, and I can see that Zowie would be a real boon for my existing method of working. However, I find that I really want to do more of _both_ reading and _finding/ingesting_ on my ipad, and I have simply not found a good workflow for the latter. Ingesting into DTP2go and then a one click ingest new stuff from DTP on desktop(post sync) would be a good way to go, but I don't know how to do the zotero step.
  • danieltomasz
    edited January 29, 2021
    I just wrote on possible workaround on DT forum https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/from-devonthink-to-zotero/61297/9
  • nccomfort
    @mhucka or anyone else:
    When you move items (bibliographic data, attached PDFs, notes & annotations) into DT, how do you do it? Do you do it manually, or is there a way to have DT watch certain sectors of my Zotero db and update on the fly?

    btw, the Extract Annotations feature of Zotfile is amazing b/c it puts all your annotations into a single file. Do you think DT's annotation capabilities are clunky compared to annotating in Acrobat and extracting annotations into Zotero? I realize that adds another step to the workflow, but still...

    Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond!
  • mhucka
    @nccomfort I've (finally) written up some notes about how I use Zotero in conjunction with DEVONthink. They are at https://github.com/mhucka/zowie/wiki . This might help answer the first question.

    To answer the second question: I personally prefer DEVONthink's PDF markup facilities to those of Acrobat or other tools I've tried.
  • b.n.lawrence
    @mhucka Thanks for writing those notes. I've not yet added zowie into my workflow, but I intend to, just as soon as zotero:// is supported on the ipad ...
Sign In or Register to comment.