Feature request: Drag-drop to reorder annotations in PDF reader (or option to order chronologically

edited July 29, 2026
Feature request: Drag-drop to reorder annotations in PDF reader (or option to order chronologically by creation)

Usage case:
I read a lot of vertical, right-left, two-page scans. This means reading roughly in the shape of an N, starting at the top right and ending at the bottom left. Highlights in the PDF reader are entirely out of order.

I would like to be able to put them in order, either with drag-drop (probably a toggle to lock/unlock this feature in Settings?) or by having the option to order them chronologically. The latter solution is imperfect given that reading is not a purely linear process, but it would be better than nothing.

Are either of these possible?
  • +1
    I use templates to create outlines, etc. with Better Notes and need the annotations to be in the correct order. Drag & Drop to reorder them feels very intuitive to me.
  • I developed a template for Better Notes to address this issue.

    It requires tagging each individual annotation, which is cumbersome but not impossible.

    The biggest annoyance is that because the tags have to be sequential (001, 002, etc.), you have to go back and tag after reading -- an additional layer of processing and therefore friction and time loss.

    If anyone has a suggestion for a better system, please let me know!
  • Thank you, that sounds like a good idea especially for longer texts or if you want to create multiple notes.

    I am currently just re-ordering paragraphs within the note item, because it is possible to drag & drop them in there. It requires going back and forth between the text and the note item to see in what order the paragraphs should be, but it works well enough.

    I wonder, would it be possible to create a template that sorts annotations by page number first and then by tags? That way, you would at least only have to tag annotations that are out of order.

    But still: a built-in drag & drop function to re-order annotations would be preferable.
  • @nathan.hopson: Can you share some open source examples of files where you see the problem. There may be a better way to solve this, either in Zotero or in PDF editing tools.

    You can try the Weavero plugin for reordering and sorting the annotations:
    https://github.com/mjthoraval/Weavero
  • @mjthoraval
    Some examples:
    https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1460730/1/14
    https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1240207/1/11

    I have installed Weavero and will give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion!
  • Do you OCR the files before adding them to Zotero? If yes, how do you do the OCR?
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