Problem importing annotations

grfaith
I was using another citation management system to highlight pdfs. I am trying to switch to Zotero and have imported the pdfs. Unfortunately, I cannot see any of the highlighting or notes I made earlier. When I scroll down to a new page of the pdf, the highlighting shows up very briefly before the text displays over the top of it.

When try to use the "import annotations" button, it is greyed out.

How can I fix this?
  • adamsmith
    How do the annotations look in a different PDF reader, e.g. Acrobat? And which other citation manager?
  • grfaith
    I was using Qiqqa originally. I'm not getting super consistent results right now on viewing. If I send the file, can you take a look?
  • dstillman
    Do the annotations appear in the Annotations tab of the left sidebar? Do they have a lock icon?

    If you're using any third-party plugins, make sure you've tried with those disabled.
  • grfaith
    I'm not seeing any annotations in the sidebar. I've disabled plugins.
  • dstillman
    If you’re not seeing highlights in the sidebar then they’re not standard PDF annotations and wouldn’t be importable.

    Can you send the file to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread?
  • dstillman
    @grfaith: Yeah, there are no PDF annotations in that file. You can open it in any other PDF reader to see — the annotations pane will be empty.
  • grfaith
    Ok, I've sent a file I've just checked in Acrobat - I can see the annotations listed in the content panel. They're showing as path items.
  • grfaith
    (pp 16 - Introduction p 5)
  • dstillman
    I don't know what a "path item" is, and I don't have a content panel in Acrobat. Are you referring to the full, paid version of Acrobat? That might support all sorts of weird annotation types, but that's not relevant here — Zotero and nearly every other PDF reader support just the normal highlight/note/ink annotation types. The relevant test other than Zotero would be the Edge/Chrome/Firefox PDF reader, Preview/PDF Expert on macOS, basically any other standard PDF reader other than the paid version of Acrobat. The highlights/notes panes will be empty for this file in all of those.
  • grfaith
    @dstillman

    So, I'm looking at it and it seems that there's something in the pdf, just not in the right place or in a way that it can be easily read. I'm wondering if there's a code solution to this. I can have Qiqqa print out a json with all the annotations. Alternately, maybe I can run a script to change the annotation from path to rectangle and shift it over however many pixels. Any ideas?
  • grfaith
    @dstillman - I'm also wondering if the "path" annotation type is actually drawing a polygon rather than rectangle.
  • grfaith
    I've checked another text where the highlights do show up in Chrome (and Zotero). It does look like it's rectangles around words, rather than traditional highlighting.

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