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I used Zotero quite a bit in the past, the thing that ultimately drove me away is that when synchronizing you couldn't easily access the PDFs just via the files

I used Zotero quite a bit in the past, the thing that ultimately drove me away is that when synchronizing you couldn't easily access the PDFs just via the filesystem. I use a nextcloud and also wanted to access PDFs from devices without Zotero installed and this turned out to be a pain at the time. Is this possible with more recent Zotero versions? Is the sync still cumbersome with a zotero account + self-hosted webdav?

_aavaa_ 5y ago
I have a similar setup (Zotero + dropbox). Zotero syncs the entries and any notes, but dropbox takes care of the pdf storage. You can swap out dropbox for your storage of choice. I use zotfile (http://zotfile.com http://zotfile.com) to handle this. Files are all stored in a single folder (which can be in different locations depending on computer) which I point zotfile to. Inside that each paper is put into a folder based on author names. And each pdf is then renamed based on authors, year, and title. All of the above is customizable and automated.
- kristjansson 5y ago
  I can’t recommend ZotFile enough. It, along with Zotero, have basically solved cross-platform cross-device reading and reference management for me.
- jcuenod 5y ago
  Another +1 for Zotfile, but Z6 looks like it bakes in some of zotfile's features.
  - ryanwwest 5y ago
    I'm glad it includes some, but perhaps not the feature of storing pdfs in a different place so they can be easily synced via Dropbox? While I'd like to have as few extensions as possible, maybe I'll neat to keep Zotfile around regardless.
AlanYx 5y ago
There is a plugin called Zotfile that makes this easier. But in some ways Zotero 6 makes filesystem workflows more complicated, in that PDF annotations don't get stored as actual annotations in the PDFs.
- asdff 5y ago
  You don't have to use their system, you can just use your standard pdf viewer too.
iamcreasy 5y ago
You can still access the pdf file via the file system by right clicking on the item and 'show file'. The files names may not be user friendly though.
- dynamic_sausage 5y ago
  zotfile plugin, mentioned above in this thread, makes file names user friendly.
- ska 5y ago
  There is handy functionality to rename pdf files based on parent metadata. I think you can set this up to be done automatically on import too. This is great to have consistent filenames from lots of different sources. Of course if the metadata is wrong or missing, it won't help.
v-yadli 5y ago
Zotfile is an extension that automatically converts internally stored pdfs to links in a filesystem directory -- the latter can be synchronized and accessed however you please. It's been working great for me, although recent versions have a problem that it no longer recognizes the root directory and pollutes the zotero database with machine-specific absolute paths ((

_aavaa_ 5y ago

I have a similar setup (Zotero + dropbox). Zotero syncs the entries and any notes, but dropbox takes care of the pdf storage. You can swap out dropbox for your storage of choice. I use zotfile (http://zotfile.com http://zotfile.com) to handle this. Files are all stored in a single folder (which can be in different locations depending on computer) which I point zotfile to. Inside that each paper is put into a folder based on author names. And each pdf is then renamed based on authors, year, and title. All of the above is customizable and automated.

kristjansson 5y ago
I can’t recommend ZotFile enough. It, along with Zotero, have basically solved cross-platform cross-device reading and reference management for me.
jcuenod 5y ago
Another +1 for Zotfile, but Z6 looks like it bakes in some of zotfile's features.
- ryanwwest 5y ago
  I'm glad it includes some, but perhaps not the feature of storing pdfs in a different place so they can be easily synced via Dropbox? While I'd like to have as few extensions as possible, maybe I'll neat to keep Zotfile around regardless.

AlanYx 5y ago

There is a plugin called Zotfile that makes this easier. But in some ways Zotero 6 makes filesystem workflows more complicated, in that PDF annotations don't get stored as actual annotations in the PDFs.

asdff 5y ago
You don't have to use their system, you can just use your standard pdf viewer too.

iamcreasy 5y ago

You can still access the pdf file via the file system by right clicking on the item and 'show file'. The files names may not be user friendly though.

dynamic_sausage 5y ago
zotfile plugin, mentioned above in this thread, makes file names user friendly.
ska 5y ago
There is handy functionality to rename pdf files based on parent metadata. I think you can set this up to be done automatically on import too. This is great to have consistent filenames from lots of different sources. Of course if the metadata is wrong or missing, it won't help.

v-yadli 5y ago

Zotfile is an extension that automatically converts internally stored pdfs to links in a filesystem directory -- the latter can be synchronized and accessed however you please. It's been working great for me, although recent versions have a problem that it no longer recognizes the root directory and pollutes the zotero database with machine-specific absolute paths ((