[Solved] Opening PDF files in Zotero - I'm confused

edited November 17, 2022
Mac Ventura 13.0.1 (22A400)
Zotero 6.0.19-beta.1+26847c672
Firefox 107.0 (64-bit)

I can drag a pdf file to a Zotero collection, double-click on it and it will open in Zotero (and not Mac Preview). I can select text and past it into (for example) the abstract field of the parent record.

I thought that I remembered being able to download a pdf file while in Firefox and have that file open in Zotero after clicking the appropriate Zotero dialog box approval.

Since I first updated to Mac Ventura, I cannot accomplish that but must download the file and drag it from Finder to a Zotero collection. Have I imagined that "memory" and this is not possible and has never been so? I thought that I recalled being able to open a pdf file in Zotero by default much as I can import other file types. Granted, I only "recall" doing that a few times. Is this something I can fix with changes to other Mac settings or has this never been possible? Have I done something to block the ability to open .pdf files in Zotero by default? If so, what might that be?

Within Zotero / Preferences / General : I have "open PDFs with Zotero" set.

Within Firefox preferences / applications : I have multiple PDF listings and all were changed long ago from Preview to Zotero

I don't see a setting in Finder that might affect this.

I cannot find a setting in the new format of Ventura "System Settings" that may control this.

When I try to open a pdf from Finder or Firefox I get a Zotero "Import File" dialog:
Do you want to import the file "hwv024-1.pdf"?

If I click OK, I get an ERROR "The selected file is not in a supported format."

As I said above, I'm quite confused. If this has never been an option, might there be a way to have this become an option? I feel ridiculous asking this. Thus, if I am imagining things please forgive me.

  • edited November 17, 2022
    I thought that I remembered being able to download a pdf file while in Firefox and have that file open in Zotero after clicking the appropriate Zotero dialog box approval.
    That hasn't existed in years, since the old Firefox extension. We can't modify Firefox dialog boxes anymore.

    The way you save PDFs to Zotero (if you're not able to properly save from an article page) is by keeping your browser set to preview PDFs in the browser — which is the default in all browsers — and clicking the Save to Zotero button while viewing the PDF at the http(s):// URL. If it's set to either save PDFs to disk or display downloaded files, such that you see a file:// URL when viewing the PDF in the browser, it won't work.

    You've never been able to "open" a PDF via Zotero to add it, though that's long-planned and might come soon. For now, if you have a file already on disk, you need to drag it to Zotero or use Store Copy of File.
  • Thank you for your quick reply. At least I'm not completely misremembering. I've been using Zotero forever and I guess that my recall is from long long ago.
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