PDF attachment edited on Zotero for iPad fails to sync back to Zotero on Mac

fjwolski · September 20, 2023

I like to take notes using Pencil on iPad in my PDFs, and I tried doing that in Zotero. I would expect these notes to sync back to my Mac. As a test, I picked a journal article in Zotero on iPad; did a handwritten doodle on the first page with Pencil; confirmed that doodle does in fact show in web library (so the updated PDF made it to Zotero servers); but it's not syncing to Zotero app on Mac. I include Debug ID for sync + opening that article: D243850716. For context I have paid 2GB plan and use <50% of it

adamsmith · September 20, 2023

Are you opening the PDF in Zotero with the Zotero PDF reader or with the system one (like Preview)? Only the former will work

fjwolski · September 22, 2023

Confirmed that works! My default setting had Zotero opening PDFs externally in Preview.

Is there a way to export the PDF with these annotations afterwards? (so that they would be also visible in e.g. Preview)?

adamsmith · September 22, 2023

Not really, no: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/annotations_in_database

fjwolski · September 23, 2023

Thank you for the link!

Anyone, for reference, the link Adam linked explains that yes you can export and I just tested and it works :)