Extract PDF notes
Hi there,
When attaching a pdf file to a new element, Zotero extracts automatically all in-file pdf annotations (e.g. Adobe acrobat highlighted sentences) as annotations impossible to delete.
How to avoid this automatic extraction?
When attaching a pdf file to a new element, Zotero extracts automatically all in-file pdf annotations (e.g. Adobe acrobat highlighted sentences) as annotations impossible to delete.
How to avoid this automatic extraction?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u17619333/e6wxd4jhki0mzxtjf09w.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u17619333/a61g1gaihq9kl9hfygal.png
File → Import Annotations is in the reader. Open the PDF first.
If you just want to take notes — not annotations — about the document, you can create Zotero notes on the parent item, either from the library tab or by opening the Notes pane in the reader. Zotero notes aren't annotations and don't appear in the section you showed.
If you don't want to see the list of PDF annotations in the item pane, you can just collapse that section.
If for some reason you want to actually remove the annotations you created in another PDF reader, you can use File → Import Annotations from the reader, open the Annotations tab of the left sidebar, select all annotations, and delete them.
It can still be acceptable. How to do this please? I do not see any option to do this nor see any area of the right menu dedicated specifically to notes
Annotations — of all the kinds I listed above, including highlights, underlines, and location-specific note annotations — are annotations on the PDF, and those are going to appear in the Annotations tab of the reader sidebar and the Annotations section of the item pane in the library view, no matter where they were created. Again, it would make absolutely no sense for a highlight that you create in Acrobat and a highlight you create in Zotero not to appear in the same list of annotations. Zotero has a built-in PDF reader. It supports many standard annotation types. You create them the same way as in other PDF tools. They happen to not be stored in the file while using Zotero, but that's a technical implementation detail — if you export the PDF, they'll all be embedded in the file as standard PDF annotations. I don't know why you have this idea that PDF annotations created in Zotero and PDF annotations created in another tool are somehow fundamentally different, but there's just no basis for that, and it's not what the vast majority of users would expect. This isn't going to change.
Simple questions, simple answers, no escape:
1) can I create a note to page 5 with Zotero that is listed separately from highlightings in the right menu of Zotero? YES or NO
2) can I create a note to page 5 that when I click on it (in the right menu of Zotero) will open the pdf directly at that page? YES or NO
You asked whether annotations created with Adobe would be displayed separately from annotations created with Zotero, and the answer is no and will remain no.
For your new questions: Currently, no. As I've said, the section is called Annotations, and it will show all annotations of any type. It may become possible to filter different types of annotations there in some way. That will definitely become possible in the Annotations tab of the reader's left sidebar, where there are already other filtering options (tag, color, etc.) at the bottom of the pane, and we'll be adding annotation type as a filter there. That wouldn't work as well in the item pane, which is already contextual based on what's selected in the items list, but we'll see what makes sense there. Annotations will be displayed directly in the items list in the next major version of Zotero, and it will likely become possible to filter the items list by annotation type in some way, which would accomplish the same thing.
Just to be clear, it is standard for PDF readers to display annotations in a sidebar without any sort of filtering options, and that's what Zotero does now. We go beyond that already in the reader sidebar, and we'll be adding other features to both the reader sidebar and item pane Annotations section, but you should understand that what you're asking for is not a standard thing. Mendeley not displaying the standard PDF annotations that are already in the file isn't a feature — that's just a limitation of the software. Mendeley has not historically demonstrated a lot of care for standards or interoperability. Currently, no, but that's just because the display of annotations there was added recently. You can do this in the Annotations tab of the reader's left sidebar.
In a future version, it will be possible both to jump directly to the PDF page as well as to edit annotations directly in the item pane. In the Zotero beta, you can also already double-click on annotations in the items list to jump to the PDF page.