They're just files on your disk, so you can absolutely just link to them.
Zotero also has a built-in handler to open specifically PDFs, zotero://open-pdf that takes the form
zotero://open-pdf/library/items/X8RAB4KG?page=1 where the X8RAB4KG is the item ID, which is the same as the foldername the PDF is stored in. Those links can also be used from other apps -- I don't think they work when Zotero isn't running, though.

What is the actual workflow you want to accomplish? What are the steps you want to be able to follow in your daily work?

OK so in reply to @bwiernik (sorry for the long text, but you asked me to explain and I'll try to do it to the best of my ability - English is not my first language):

I have many different projects that involve readings. Different classes with required bibliography, different essays I have to write, papers I'm writing that require research, and other skills I'm trying to learn on my own. Also, a lot of these also require reading things I don't normally keep in Zotero (since I try to keep Zotero only scientific articles and research - I know it can be much more than that and I even used it like that in the past, but it just became unmanageable for me).

I've been feeling this has been hard for me to keep track of (it's the first year I have so many concurrent readings required of me, for many different purposes), to know what I need to read next for each project, or how many things I still have to read before some deadline, for example.

One way I was thinking of trying to make sense of it all, was to make a kind of "dashboard" either on Notion or OneNote, for each of these projects, where I would keep everything relevant for the project in question, including, among other information, a "to-read/listen/watch" list, with book chapters, videos, podcasts, web pages and also scientific papers. And I was thinking of linking to the ones stored in Zotero Cloud Storage like I can link to the things in my Dropbox for example, for easy access, wherever I am (on my desktop, ultrabook, iPad, work PC, phone, boyfriend laptop, etc).

I know I can achieve this in other ways. I can simply put a citation taken from Zotero on the "to-read" list and, when needed, search for the relevant article on Zotero and send it to the tablet (or whatever device) with Zotfile. Or just search and download it from the Zotero Web Library. Or I can have a copy of the articles on Dropbox and link that copy (but I was trying to avoid that - having duplicates of the same file, where the two versions not only don't sync with eachother, but are taking space on two different platforms, when I'm already storing them on Zotero paid storage). Or I could just store them in Dropbox and use linked files with Zotfile, as I did in the past, but I'd rather pay for the Zotero Cloud Storage for various reasons.

So in essence, it's definitely not a "make-it-or-break-it" kind of thing, I can achieve almost the same goal in some other way. I was just wondering if it was possible to do it this way, since it seems the most straightforward (less steps involved and less workarounds, so to speak).


And in reply to @adamsmith :
It would be for my personal use only, not to share with anyone else. Only for personal management. But on different devices (although not concurrently - a file would be accessed on one device at a time).

Do you think I risk some kind of file and/or sync corruption or some other problem and it would be better to avoid it?

Or if it can be done, where can I get the links to the files attached on Zotero Cloud Storage?

That's great! Thanks so much for the help!

It's read only for your entire library though, so not comparable to a Dropbox share link

Dear Adam

We have a project management software in which the data for each project is stored, which is then directly synchronised with our homepage. The publications for the individual projects are stored in Zotero (Cloud).

Now we would like to reference the respective publications in the project management software to the entry in the Zotero cloud via API connector.

I have the user ID from our Zotero Cloud and have generated an API key.

If I now use the URL as you specified, I always get the message: No item found.
The URL looks like this:
https://api.zotero.org/users/1234567/items/12345678/file/view?key=222222222
(key is much longer :-)

A link to a publication in Zotero looks like this:
https://www.zotero.org/groups/1234567/bass_publikationen/collections/12345678/items/12345678/collection

Where am I making the mistake?

Many thanks and best regards
Georges Burkhalter

Hello Adam

Thank you for your quick reply!
Then it is clear to me that the attachementID is needed.

If I now create the link as follows, it still does not find the document.
https://api.zotero.org/users/xxx/groups/xxx/collections/xxx/items/xxx/attachment/xxx/file/view?key=xxx

Can you tell me how to create the correct link?

And what is the easiest way to read the attachementID from Zotero or the publication? I currently only find it when I open the PDF and then I see the attachmentID in the browser line.

Many thanks and best regards
Georges Burkhalter

Thank's a lot, Adam! I will try that.
Best, Georges