Issue with Zotero iOS when selecting text in Chinese PDFs

Issue with Zotero iOS when selecting text in Chinese PDFs
When highlighting or selecting text in Chinese PDFs on Zotero iOS (iPhone/iPad), the selection always forces itself to start from the first character of the line or from punctuation marks like commas or periods. I cannot freely select from the middle of a sentence.
For example:

I only want to select "救援装备" (rescue equipment), but it automatically starts from the beginning of the line.

I try to select "应急管理救助机构" (emergency management agencies), but it forces the selection to begin after a comma.

Is this a user error? Has anyone else experienced this? How do you fix it, or is this an app issue?


请教一下大家,Zotero 的 iOS 版(手机/平板)打开中文 pdf 文献,在高亮或划线选词时,总是强制从行首第一个字或标点(如“,、。”)之后开始选择,无法从中间自由选取。
比如第一处高亮,我只想选“救援装备”,但它会自动从行首的“备”字开始一直选到后面;第二处想选“应急管理救助机构”,却总从逗号“,”后开始选起。
是我操作的问题吗?大家有遇到过吗,是怎么解决的?还是说是 app 问题
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Can you let us know which device, iOS version, and Zotero app version you see this issue in? Does it happen for all documents, or certain ones? In the latter case, can you share such a document with support@zotero.org and mention this thread? If you can please also provide a screen recording of the issue.
  • iPhone 14plus(ios26.3.1)zotero(2.0.4),iPad 9 (ipados26.1)zotero(2.0.4).it happened for all PDFs in Chinese.and i'll email you later.my email:lihingkueng@outlook.com. thank you
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    Thanks for extra info you shared with us.

    What you experience is not a bug, but that's how the third party library we use to display and annotate PDFs works, for any language, not just Chinese.

    If you use touch-based or pencil to e.g. highlight a word, it will snap to start or end of the current word, according to the direction you move after the first touch. I.e. touch and move right will snap to the start of the word, touch and move left will snap to the end of the word.

    If you use a mouse or trackpad with an iPad, then you are able to highlight more precisely.

    As another alternative, you can do simple text selection, that is without having selected an annotation tool first, because there you can move the start and end selection handles for more precise control and then tap on the selection to get the actions menu where you can also highlight or underline.
  • it will be the sentence or the line in Chinese,not word.it's bug.
  • mvasilak Zotero Team
    AFAIK, words in this context are split according to space, commas, periods, and other such delimiters, which unfortunately doesn't work well for languages such as Chinese where breaks are not used between consecutive words. So not so much of a bug, as lack of support for this case.

    I'll also verify this with the third-party library provider, to make certain we do not miss something.

    In any case, the alternatives I provided, especially the select text first and then highlight through the selection action menu, should allow at least for the desired end result.
  • but I really hope to improve this to improve the reading experience for Chinese users.thank you.
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