Available for beta testing: Import Mendeley annotations
The latest Zotero beta adds the ability to import Mendeley annotations directly into Zotero for use in the new PDF reader.
Zotero's Mendeley importer will now import highlight and note annotations along with attachments. Zotero will extract the text for text highlights, allowing you to view the text in the annotation sidebar and drag the text into your notes. Rectangle highlight annotations will be automatically converted to Zotero's image annotations, allowing you to view thumbnails in the annotation sidebar and drag the images directly into your notes.
If you've previously imported a Mendeley database into Zotero, you should be able to simply repeat the process to add annotations to your existing imported attachments. The importer previously created notes from note annotations, and those existing notes won't be touched.
As before, you'll need to be running Mendeley 1.18 for the importer to work, due to database encryption in later versions of Mendeley.
For this initial version, I would recommend making a backup of your Zotero data directory and temporarily disabling auto-sync before the import. You can re-enable auto-sync once you've confirmed that everything was imported correctly.
Let us know if you run into any trouble.
Zotero's Mendeley importer will now import highlight and note annotations along with attachments. Zotero will extract the text for text highlights, allowing you to view the text in the annotation sidebar and drag the text into your notes. Rectangle highlight annotations will be automatically converted to Zotero's image annotations, allowing you to view thumbnails in the annotation sidebar and drag the images directly into your notes.
If you've previously imported a Mendeley database into Zotero, you should be able to simply repeat the process to add annotations to your existing imported attachments. The importer previously created notes from note annotations, and those existing notes won't be touched.
As before, you'll need to be running Mendeley 1.18 for the importer to work, due to database encryption in later versions of Mendeley.
For this initial version, I would recommend making a backup of your Zotero data directory and temporarily disabling auto-sync before the import. You can re-enable auto-sync once you've confirmed that everything was imported correctly.
Let us know if you run into any trouble.
This discussion has been closed.
One question: are there any potential issues if I run the beta version (with the PDF reader) on one machine and sync the database and attachments with another machine running the release version?
I followed the instructions provided at https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/mendeley_import to import data from Mendeley, but didn't manage to have my highlights and pdf notes imported. Only Mendeley's general notes are correctly imported.
I am using version 5.0.97-beta.5+b3e46392b of Zotero. Is there any known issue with this version? Are there extra steps to be performed to have everything imported?
The annotated papers come from a Mendeley group library that, as suggested in the import instructions, has been copied to Mendeley's "My Library", so that Zotero could retrieve them.
In Mendeley Desktop, I can see my annotations both in the originals and in the copies. Indeed, they seem "linked" in some way (e.g., after creating a new highlight in one, I can see it also in the other).
Could it be that the annotations are not actually copied from the original group to "My Library"? Unfortunately, I cannot even check how a sample pair of documents is rendered in Mendeley's web library (or in the Mendeley Reference Manager client), as it appears to be down since (at least) yesterday. :/
Thanks for your support!
So, would it be feasible for you to detect whether an item is a copy of another one belonging to a group and, in that case, fetch the existing annotations during import?
I really hope the answer is "yes", I can't wait to ditch Mendeley once and for all. :)
So, I ran into the same problem as @gschrock of having to individually download hundreds of pdf (about 2/3 of my database) in Mendeley after downgrading to 1.18, which equals to a frustrating morning. It also deleted around ~100 files for no reason I can understand. But like it was said, this seems to be Mendeley problem. Mentioning just so other people making the move are aware.
But also, I'm having the same issue as @glanciano , in which none of my highlights or notes within papers have been imported. Zotero's pdf reader is enabled and these are ALL the documents on My Library in Mendeley. I'm not sure I entirely followed the exchange above on what the problem might be. But, when I used the Importer on Zotero, there was an option for File Handling, where I chose "Link to files in original location" as opposed to "Copy files to the Zotero storage folder". Could this be the problem or am I way off? I chose that option because it felt like the other option would just fill up the 300MB Zotero storage very quickly.
I've also downloaded Zotfile, not sure if that's relevant in any way.
The problem discussed above is about annotations on files copied from (or possibly to) group libraries, which Mendeley seems to treat in a very bizarre way in its database. We're looking into addressing that.
Also: a super useful feature of Mendeley is that you can click one tab called "Notes" to see general notes + a color-coded list of all highlights and annotations. Is there a way to view annotations this way in the Zotero beta? The only way I could see to do it was to make a new note from annotations, which requires an extra step, and also removes the color-coding of the highlights.
Thanks!
I successfully imported my Mendeley collection to Zotero beta with my highlights and pdf stored through a cloud storage facility.
However, when I open the pdf reader, a red banner says :
"An error occured during 'setState'. What does it mean ? How to fix it ?
PDF.js v2.8.146 (build: 7dd64325d)
Message:
Stack: Unix error 2 during operation open on file /home/pauline/Zotero/storage/9QDTZTPP/.zotero-pdf-state (No such file or directory)
(No stack trace)
From previous event:
captureStackTrace@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:915:23
CapturedTrace@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:807:5
longStackTracesCaptureStackTrace@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:482:19
doThenable@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/thenables.js:60:5
tryConvertToPromise@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/thenables.js:28:20
module.exports/Promise.cast@resource://zotero/loader.jsm -> resource://zotero/bluebird/promise.js:222:15
Zotero.File</this.putContentsAsync@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/file.js:410:14
_setState@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/reader.js:495:2723
ReaderInstance/<@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/reader.js:415:21
However I noticed that many (some are still present) of my highlights were lost during the migration + update. Do you see anything that can explain that loss ? The update ? The sync ? I use a cloud storage service for my pdfs. In this case, where are stored the highlights and annotations ? Within Zotero server ?
If you're not sure if that's the issue for you and are willing to share a copy of your Mendeley database privately, you can ZIP it and email it (or a link to it, if it's large) to support@zotero.org and we can see what's happening in your case.
After a couple of panic attacks with downgrading the mendeley version, as I did not see all my notes, references and attachments; restoring from a backup from mendeley, etc.
I can say, the import from 1.18 works smoothly.
Question: how would a re-import look like? Would it do a delta compare and reimport only missing docs in zotero or would it reimport everything?
Thanks.
I only understood what was happening to my library last sunday. I am about to submit my PhD thesis by the end of this month. You guys have really saved me. Thank you so much, really. This was a quick and uncomplicated solution in comparison to everything that the elsevier company offered as solution in their blurry "we improve your experience". Thank you, thank you, thank you for this smooth solution.
I have a strange issue where some highlights are not imported for me. For example, I have a document where only 4 out of 5 highlights are imported. I checked the PDF on Mendeley online, and all highlights are there. Any ideas why this is happening?