Hi everyone, I use zotero on my pc for years, but want to buy an e-reader now, saving the e-reader annotation/highlights into zotero. Which one do you use and recommend? Thank you very much!
Defining e-reader narrowly, currently none, with nothing in that space in sight. People are most interested in the remarkable 2 and there are some threads with workarounds for that, but nothing built-in or simple.
If you count generic tablets currently iPads and pretty soon Android tablets (will) have full Zotero integration.
When the Android app is released soon (purportedly in 2023 with Zotero 7), I'm guessing that will be the easiest way to read and annotate PDFs and EPUBs/HTML files (new to Zotero 7). But I'm not that hopeful that the Android app will be e-ink friendly at least for now (both in terms of black-and-white display items and navigation for e.g. flipping between EPUB pages). Still, it will be way better than nothing.
I contribute to https://github.com/koreader/koreader which also runs on Android and many non-Android ereaders and also lets you read and highlight/annotate PDFs, EPUBs, and HTML files. I'm thinking about a way to have KOReader read/write highlights stored in the Zotero database when opening an item attachment, at least for Android e-readers/devices with both apps installed, to give an alternate (and probably more powerful) reader app. But there are quite a few differences with how highlights and annotations are stored between the two platforms, so I'm still unsure of its feasibility.
The Boox Page is 7 inches and I have its previous iteration (Leaf 2) and love it. If you want to draw/handwriting on the tablet, look at the Note Air 3C. There are many other options too.
I work with 13 inch boox (boox max 3) and zotfile, which works very well. But zotfile won't run on zotero 7, so all my hope is on the hopefully soon to be released zotero for android. boox is in my veiw preferable to remarkable, as it runs standard android, and you can therefore install all apps that are available for android. Annotation and highlighting works very well.
Search for boox in these forums, and you will find a number of reports how to integrate the workflow using zotfile.
It seems that Zotero File does not intend to do so ... "This plugin will gradually migrate the core functionality of ZotFile (tablet sync not included)" https://github.com/MuiseDestiny/zotero-file
I didn't realize until now that linked attachments likely won't function on the Android app, and I'm not sure if addons will be supported in Android either. So zotero-file may be the way to go if people prefer that storage method, and the Android app might be a lot less useful in this case than I realized (glad to have it either way though).
Zotero-file is a new plugin meant to replace the existing add-on/plugin Zotfile for Zotero 7 going forward. Most features are retained but tablet syncing is not.
To be clear, the plugin is not called "Zotero File" — Zotero is a registered trademark, plugin developers are not allowed to use it in a formulation other than "x for Zotero" (to avoid exactly this sort of confusion), and we've previously asked the developer of this plugin to rename it. We've just asked them again to remove remaining references to "Zotero File" on the GitHub page and to update the URL.
@dstillman That seems clear to you, but if a few more weeks pass with no updates (i.e. the definitive reinstatement of “the-plugin-formerly-known-as-‘Zotero File’” with a different name), it will be safe to assume that in the otherwise perfectly legitimate process of protecting your trademark (as a graphic and type designer, I know all too well how those things go), you may have scared a non-native-English-speaking developer (at least going by what I can recall from their GitHub page) into irreversibly withdrawing a very useful plugin.
I'm not sure just how complex such a renaming/branding endeavour is (does it entail scouring the entire codebase and pruning it of certain references to Zotero?), but considering that we're nearing the end of the year (and a final Zotero 7 release) and that it's already been an entire week with the most promising successor to ZotFile completely MIA, ehhh…
If that turns out to be the case, could you please reach out to them and provide some assurances that, no, you won't sue them as long as there's no longer any trademark infringement? I'm not saying that you shouldn't have protected or shouldn't keep protecting your trademark, but you should also consider the health of the platform you're managing here, and that includes proper PR and dealing with people who may not have the level of English proficiency that you expect. Thanks!
Zotero 7 plugin Attanger(which is kind of replacing ZotFile) doesn't have a send to tablet functionality, but you can set a collection to be the folder of your tablet files and push your files through there (although moving files is a bit tricky with an item being in multiple collections. you need to make sure that the item is only on the dedicated collection and have the proper settings in plugin for moving files). You can set Syncthing to sync changes in that folder to Boox. I don't see another way to use this function in the current setup of Zotero 7 and Attanger plugin.
On a brighter note, Zotero Beta for Android works pretty well on my Boox Tab Ultra. There needs to be improvements on the functionality side, but they would be coming along on the way I guess. It won't support any other way than WebDav sync AFAIK, which is a road I am not willing to go down. Zotero storage and native sync is the way to go IMHO. After so many little things getting broken and me fixing them with ZotFile and tablet sync, it feels so smooth.
Can anyone give me a timeline on when the Zotero Beta for Android might be opening up more broadly? Would have loved to check out early access, but I seem to have missed it - didn't see the initial opening. With the latest Zotero updates, the workflow I'd figured out with my Boox is of course now no longer working.
The devs never given timelines. But there were two sets of slots, the last quite some time ago (I think February), and since then nothing. Also, the app seems to be rather stable, with relatively few posts on here with bugs or issues. So my assumption would be that we are quite near to a general release. But I have no connection to the developpers, and these are just guesses. Also they said they would add a number of features and it is not clear whether they will first add them and then open for general release, or release the app first, and then add more features.
@jgamble I used the Anroid Beta with my Boox Tab Ultra for 2 months and switched back to Zoo for Zotero. Using Zotero Sync with Zoo for Zotero is way better than beta for the time being imho. Swiping the pages and annotating was not that smooth. There is a page scrubber but not being able to write page numbers to navigate is a dealbreaker. Also only two crop options were not sufficient for my needs.
@migugg and @ulahcherubim, thank you for your replies! Hopefully if further improvements to the new Zotero android app are coming, they will improve on the experience by the time I'm able to access them. In the interim, I'll look at Zoo for Zotero - I hadn't actually tried it yet.
Upgrade Storage
If you count generic tablets currently iPads and pretty soon Android tablets (will) have full Zotero integration.
Look at Boox ereaders - all of the new ones have Android 11/12 and work very well. Some are color - see https://www.youtube.com/@MyDeepGuide/videos for good reviews.
I contribute to https://github.com/koreader/koreader which also runs on Android and many non-Android ereaders and also lets you read and highlight/annotate PDFs, EPUBs, and HTML files. I'm thinking about a way to have KOReader read/write highlights stored in the Zotero database when opening an item attachment, at least for Android e-readers/devices with both apps installed, to give an alternate (and probably more powerful) reader app. But there are quite a few differences with how highlights and annotations are stored between the two platforms, so I'm still unsure of its feasibility.
Search for boox in these forums, and you will find a number of reports how to integrate the workflow using zotfile.
"This plugin will gradually migrate the core functionality of ZotFile (tablet sync not included)"
https://github.com/MuiseDestiny/zotero-file
Zotero-file is a new plugin meant to replace the existing add-on/plugin Zotfile for Zotero 7 going forward. Most features are retained but tablet syncing is not.
This is separate from Zotero Storage online.
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/446811#Comment_446811
I'm not sure just how complex such a renaming/branding endeavour is (does it entail scouring the entire codebase and pruning it of certain references to Zotero?), but considering that we're nearing the end of the year (and a final Zotero 7 release) and that it's already been an entire week with the most promising successor to ZotFile completely MIA, ehhh…
If that turns out to be the case, could you please reach out to them and provide some assurances that, no, you won't sue them as long as there's no longer any trademark infringement? I'm not saying that you shouldn't have protected or shouldn't keep protecting your trademark, but you should also consider the health of the platform you're managing here, and that includes proper PR and dealing with people who may not have the level of English proficiency that you expect. Thanks!
On a brighter note, Zotero Beta for Android works pretty well on my Boox Tab Ultra. There needs to be improvements on the functionality side, but they would be coming along on the way I guess. It won't support any other way than WebDav sync AFAIK, which is a road I am not willing to go down. Zotero storage and native sync is the way to go IMHO. After so many little things getting broken and me fixing them with ZotFile and tablet sync, it feels so smooth.