Zotero as a Free PDF Library Manager
I recently crowd-sourced ideas for a better way to catalog,
annotate and search my collected PDFs, mainly software and hardware user
manuals with a few odds and ends thrown in. The top suggestions were:
- Zotero - the app I chose
- DevonThink - expensive when all I want is PDF searches
- Eagle Filer - what I've been using, but I want something that is native to Apple silicon, works on IOS and is lightweight as a way to search PDFs only
- Paperless-ngx - Interesting, but requires Docker
- Obsidia - not suitable because the plugin required for text searched creates too many support files
Zotero
I chose Zotero, because it's free, lightweight and offers an iOS app using the same data. Zotero can import multiple files at once. It has built in tools for highlighting and making annotations to PDFs. There are numerous plugins available, including:
- AutoIndex - Keeps the full-text index updated. Beta release. If you have ZotFile installed, Auto-index will also kick off auto-extraction of notes.
- PDF Translate - Provides PDF translation for the built-in PDF reader in Zotero
- PDF Preview - Preview Zotero attachments in the library view.
- Zutilo - Adds additional editing functions and exposes Zotero functions for keyboard shortcuts
Zotero is designed to to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, something for which I have little use. I can however use its browser import tools and added ability to add epub and HTMS archives to my research library. It is compatible with SingleFile, an open-source project for saving HTML archives of web pages. Zotero allows you to attach notes to PDFs, retrieve their metadata and other tasks. You can organize PDFs in folders and collections. The Zotero website provides extensive information, including instructional screencasts, troubleshooting tips, a list of known issues, and user forums.