Upgrade StoragePDF reader annotations and Android
dstillman
Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Available in preview: Zotero PDF reader and new note editor.
In the mean time I'm using Zotfile, and getting frustrated by the fact that in order to see the annotations I make, I have to keep them in the marked-up PDF. I'd rather have the annotations in Zotero and keep the PDF "clean," the way this new feature does. I can obviously extract the annotations into a note and delete the marked-up PDF (keeping a clean version), but then I can't "see" the annotations in the file. Does that make sense?
Is there any way around this? Is there any way to re-create or replicate the Zotfile annotations onto the clean PDF? Or am I going to have to do this manually?
We could consider adding the ability to replace any native annotations on a PDF with the annotations from the file, which would let you (or ZotFile, using Zotero functionality) export a PDF with embedded annotations and then import them back in later. But you'd lose tags and any annotations not in the file. (Trying to automatically reconcile native and external annotations isn't something we plan to support.)
Beyond that, we'll try to add information on annotations to our API documentation soon so that Zoo or other third-party Android clients could try to support them. I don't know what the options are on Android for embeddable PDF readers with programmable annotation support, so I don't know how feasible that would be.
I don't know the technical feasibility of annotation support, but I do know that the Mendeley Android app had PDF annotation support built-in, and it sounds like that's what the plan is with the iOS app. Right now Zoo and other third-party clients are a long way away from having that functionality. I would be bummed if that functionality were only available to iOS users.
As you know, Zotero already reads annotations from other PDF readers.
I'm fully aware that Zotero *reads* those external annotations but the whole point is to avoid having to keep the annotations in the PDF. But until there is an Android mobile app that allows for native annotations in Zotero, folks like me are stuck using Zotfile to read PDFs on Android readers - which gives no option but to have external annotations. I feel like my only choice now is to manually go in and duplicate all of the external annotations in the PDF file, then delete them off the PDF file. Or keep multiple versions of the file - one with annotations and one without. Total PITA!
If that's indeed not possible, then *please* tell me that you're going to develop an Android app similar to what you've developed for iOS. If not then I'm going to have to suck it up and buy an iPad, which is the last thing I care to do.
As we've said, we'll likely make it possible to do one-way transfers between external and Zotero annotations while deleting the source annotations. I don't know when that will happen.
Looking forward.
(Meantime VERY happy with PC desktop version.)
I just saw that the iOS version was done in Swift. I wonder if there are plans to port it, or if there's an android version repository. I could not find any specifics in the forums so far.