Export multiple PDFs without annotations

jandavid
edited October 25, 2025
Is there a way to Export PDFs without Zotero automatically embedding the annotations stored in its database?

I know I can "Show in Finder" and then copy the PDF wherever and it won't have any annotations. But I'd like to do that for multiple selected items at once (say for all items of a collection). "Export PDFs ..." in the menu automatically embeds annotations in the exported PDFs (I double-checked these are Zotero annotations they're not embedded already in the PDF in which case obviously they would remain).
  • boba5678
    Did anyone has a solution for this problem? It is really annoying to save each pdf when I want to share multiple publications with my research partners.
  • dstillman
    You can select the attachment items (not the parent items) and drag them to a folder on your desktop. The original files will be copied without annotations. You can select the items manually or construct a search that matches them and use Select All. (You currently have to drag from the main window, so if you construct a saved search, do a Select All there and then press Enter to select the same items in the main window.)

    We'll update "Export PDFs…" in a future version to provide an option to exclude annotations.
  • jandavid
    edited 2 days ago
    @dstillman Thanks so much for sharing this workaround.
    I'm not sure I'm completely following your instructions. When I build a Saved Search with Collection is "MyCollection" and Attachment Type is "PDF" it still shows me both, the parent items and the attachments in the saved search so when selecting, there is no way of only selecting the attachment items (unless I select manually, which defeats the purpose ...)

    Great to know you'll provide an option to exclude items in a future version though!
  • jandavid
    Playing around with it, it is actually quite easy to do this, and not even necessary to construct a saved search that would only show the attachments (which I still haven't been able to). The point is to select items in the main window when they are expanded, i.e., when the attachment is showing so that parent items AND attachments are both selected together. Then dragging the selection to a folder as @dstillman suggests will copy the PDFs without annotations to that folder.

    Step by step: Let's say I have a collection (or saved search) I want to export the unannotated PDFs from. I go to the collection, select all items (cmd+A), then expand them (hit the right arrow key on the keyboard), then hit select all again (cmd+A) (this is important because otherwise only the parent items are selected). Not super intuitive, but great that it works and hopefully this will help someone in the future.

    (Still, an explicit option in the context menu would be great in a future update.)
  • dstillman
    edited 2 days ago
    Ah, yeah, sorry, I forgot that we copy the file even when the parent item is also selected. No need for a search, then.

    (Note that you can just press "+" on the keyboard to expand all items, followed by Select All.)
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