Keeping a pristine copy pdf alongside one annotated

[jmlorenzi]

I am trying to use ZotFile to sync pdfs I annotate across devices (I use Zotero sync). I thought this would be solved by the "Save copy of annotated file with suffix", however, there are two small issues in that are making this difficult:

1. (less important) after annotating the pdf for the first time I get the file with "_annotated" added into my Zotero database. Up to here, this is the behavior I expected. However, if I later want to send the item again to the tablet to make more annotations, Zofile asks me to confirm I want to send two files. It would be nice if I could let Zotfile know that, when existing, the file with "_annotated" is the one ment to be sent.

I can work around this by unfolding the entry and select the specific file to send to the tablet. However, being able to select mant different entries and having Zotfile automatically deciding which file to send would be nice.

2. If I do send the annotated file to the tablet and do more annotations, when I pull the file from the tablet, I get a third file now, with "_annotated_annotated" in it. I would like instead, that Zotfile realizes that the "_annotated" is already there, and that it can then overwrite the corresponding copy.

Is there a way to get Zotfile to work like this?
Else, I guess this is a feature request.

Thanks for making Zotfile!!

[jlegewie]

Both sound like good improvements. I won't have time to work on it though. Pull requests are welcome...

[jmlorenzi]

I'd love to help... I don't know java or javascript though...
If you can give me a hint on where to start looking in the code maybe I can get inspired.

[jlegewie]

getAttachmentFromTablet, sendSelectedAttachmentsToTablet and sendAttachmentToTablet are the three relevant functions, I guess. You can try to work from there but in the end this should target 5.0, which I still haven't pushed (5.0 for for compatibility with Zotero 5 and doesn't introduce any new features).

[MarcusHallettUAH]

If no one touches this by the time Zotero 5 and Zotfile for Zotero 5 are released, I'll take a look at it and try to add this functionality.

[jlegewie]

Sounds good. I won't get to it so just let me know when you get started. Zotfile 5 (for Zotero 5) is still some time away but I might manage to get out a beta in the first half of July.

[jmlorenzi]

@MarcusHallettUAH that would be excellent.
Sadly, as I said my javascript knowledge is too limited to be able to do this...

[fungs]

Just to let you know, I believe it is straight forward to remove the annotation from a pdf file, so one could as well just have an 'export clean pdf' option or similar. I had a one-liner using ghostscript somewhere but javascript should do the same.

[mrmotallebi]

Just wondering, is this already solved?

[voyagercl]

I have the same problem right now. Is there an alternative way to solve it?

[OogieM]

I also have this problem. I often to annotating in several send and get from tablet passes and don't like the cluttering up of my system with multiple copies of partially annotated files.

I like the idea from #482 of making it an option so that those that want a history of annotations can have it but those that want a single annotated file are also able to have their preferred behavior.