Zotero 7: Add and edit notes directly on PDFs without needing to create a parent item

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Now available: Zotero 7.
  • PX2
    There is a lot to like about Z7, but forcing use of parent items in order to attach a note to a PDF imposes unnecessary complexity on those of us who just want to use Zotero as a PDF storage / indexing solution. I understand the academic focus of Zotero, but please don't assume that there aren't a lot of users out there who love the tag system of filtering and use Zotero for non-academic purposes.

    I would dearly love to see the ability to add and edit notes directly PDFs without needing to create a parent item for each one.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    @PX2: I assume you're aware, but you can create note annotations (as well as highlight/underline/image/ink annotations) on PDFs from the reader, so you can always add a note annotation to the first page as a substitute. PDF annotations also show up in in the item pane and will show up under the attachment in the items list in Zotero 8, so we decided to discontinue support for embedded attachment notes.
  • PX2
    @dstillman - I had been using PDF Expert as my default PDF reader, and annotations weren't showing up in the item pane. But I see that they do when I use the Zotero reader so that should work as well as the Notes used to. Thanks for that.

    I'd still like to reiterate that Zotero is (largely because of its tagging system) the best document management solution for a whole range of non-academic uses. Hope you guys realise that!
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    If tags are useful to you, note that individual annotations can also be tagged, and an upcoming version will let you filter those annotations by tag in the items list.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    (And yes, we certainly know that many people use Zotero in non-academic contexts and try to design everything with that in mind.)
  • PX2
    @dstillman - Just wanted to loop back on this one. Having been using the new PDF Reader / Editor in Zotero for a few weeks now, any concerns I had about loss of functionality have been erased. A reminder (for me) to fully understand a change before evaluating it, and an update for any future reader of this thread.

    I also discovered that using the 'Show in Finder' option is an easy way of opening a document in the default PDF reader instead of the built-in Zotero one when that really is necessary.
  • tim820
    @PX2 there is also a plugin that allows you to open a PDF in an external PDF reader with one or two less clicks than Show in Finder ...
    https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-open-pdf
  • PX2
    Thanks Tim - I'll check it out.
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