From Zotero to Obsidian : a tag based workflow in pictures
This post has been created in continuation of a couple of templates shared. See this thread for more context.
Workflow description:
1. Use Zotero pdf reader to annotate your readings
- highlight, annotate
- tag your highlights, tag your post-it aka fleeting notes
- make comments
2. export to your obsidian vault
3. use obsidian as you much as you like to refine your knowledge system
I used the following templates to do so.
A. Template for tags and highlights in Zotero:
edit the advanced preference extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight as followed:
- see it at work from Zotero 6.+ reader interface
- see results after export from Obsidian interface
B. Template for tags and post-it notes in Zotero:
edit the advanced preference extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.note as followed:
- at work from Zotero
- results from Obsidian
Overall results:
- from Zotero
- from Obsidian: here and here too
Hope it works for you and that the links are correct, let me know if not.
Any feedback is welcome.
It remains more of sketch than a full usecase but I think it gives an idea of what one could do with the reader-anotater features from 6.0.
Also, it emphasizes the nested tag feature on Obsidian side.
Workflow description:
1. Use Zotero pdf reader to annotate your readings
- highlight, annotate
- tag your highlights, tag your post-it aka fleeting notes
- make comments
2. export to your obsidian vault
3. use obsidian as you much as you like to refine your knowledge system
I used the following templates to do so.
A. Template for tags and highlights in Zotero:
edit the advanced preference extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.highlight as followed:
{{if comment}}<p>{{comment}}{{endif}}<blockquote><i>{{highlight}}</i></blockquote>{{citation}}{{if tags}}<br/>#hgh/{{tags : tags join=' #hgh/'}}{{endif}}
- see it at work from Zotero 6.+ reader interface
- see results after export from Obsidian interface
B. Template for tags and post-it notes in Zotero:
edit the advanced preference extensions.zotero.annotations.noteTemplates.note as followed:
<p><i>Note:{{comment}}</i>{{if tags}}<br/>#note/{{tags : tags join=' #note/'}}{{endif}}<br/>{{citation}}</p>
- at work from Zotero
- results from Obsidian
Overall results:
- from Zotero
- from Obsidian: here and here too
Hope it works for you and that the links are correct, let me know if not.
Any feedback is welcome.
It remains more of sketch than a full usecase but I think it gives an idea of what one could do with the reader-anotater features from 6.0.
Also, it emphasizes the nested tag feature on Obsidian side.
you might want to try a right click from the child note itself, not the pdf neither the parent item. Note though, I just checked and I could export notes from right clicking on the parent item.
For any doubt, it is true that I did not mention I installed Md notes plugin for Zotero, see it on https://github.com/argenos/zotero-mdnotes.
Also, you could try to drag the note and drop it to your obsidian interface if I am correct.
Extra note: I am currently considering doing a variation of the above with [[ ]]s instead of #s. That implies moving from tags to links, which is another approach that I did not explore yet. Discussions on the differences between the two are addressed in obsidian forums.
For example, maybe a variable like {{paragraph}} that gives the entire paragraph in which the highlight is found or some equivalent that provides ~3 lines above and below / ~10 words before and after the highlight. Perhaps something like what https://github.com/elias-sundqvist/obsidian-annotator offers.
I would want to use additional context in this and other workflows - does this sound appealing to anyone else, or do you know if there are other discussions on this?
However, I have a pile of old notes with Zotero tags only which I would like to export to Obsidian.
Is it possible to insert Zotero tags into the note text while exporting? Or copy the Zotero tags to the note text first (preferably in batch) and export after that?
Note that from the last update you coud retrieve the tags you used for your annotations from the general tag panel. So from there you could export the annotation corresponding to your tag. For example I could found all the annotations I tagged as "definition". See the announcement https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog#changes_in_6015_september_30_2022
Also the Better Note plugin enable some tag selection when creatin a note, using templates, see the discussion here : https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/96945/zotero-better-notes-a-knowledge-based-note-manager-in-zotero#latest
Last from the same creator, a tag plugin might enable batch edit and tag export. You might want to take a look for your case : https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-tag. This option might be more simpler than the Better note template, though I did not check myself.
The following post has an import template sample that will colorize annotations unless they are #ffd400 (Yellow).