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Zotero for Mac: The Built-In PDF Reader

Zotero is a free application that can collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.

 

Colorful, decorative horizontal line.

 

- INTERACT WITH THE FULL TEXT YOU CAPTURED -

You can highlight text in two ways, create notes, and as the number of captured items grows, use tools to help manage them.  Just double click on any of the tiny PDF icons in a Zotero list to begin using it.  It also works with EPUB full text and website snapshots.

Video Tutorial (8 minutes, 23 seconds)

Zotero for Mac: Built-In PDF Reader

 

A large screen shot of a PDF article open in Zotero's built-in reader. There are three panels numbered left to right 1-3 whose contents are explained below.

 

PANEL 1

 

- NAVIGATION -

Article Pages

Click the 4 by 4 square of tiny pages to bring up thumbnails of all pages in an article. The thumbnails are clickable.

Clickable thumbnails of the pages in the article let you jump to any page.

 

Your Notes and Highlights

The default view is all of the annotations (notes, highlights) you create for an article. This icon shows a sticky note.

View and search your notes (annotations) and highlights for this article.  Click any item to jump to that part of the article.  Click the three-dot menu to add more text to a note, change an item's color, or delete it.

If you color code your notes and highlights, say green means quote this in my paper and purple means ask my professor about this, you can click a color in this color bar which will appear at the very bottom of the panel to see just the green items or just the purple items, etc.  To go back to viewing everything at once, click all the colors.

Five clickable, tiny different colored squares--yellow, red, green, purple, magenta.

 

Article Outline

The third and last icon in the first panel indicates an outline of an article and clicking on it retrieves a clickable outline of an article if one is available.

A clickable outline of the article allows you to jump to any section of the article.  Not available for all articles.

PANEL 2

 

- INTERACT WITH THE FULL TEXT -

In the middle panel, you can read your article, highlight sections of it in two ways, underline, and create notes.  Choose from 8 colors to color code your highlights and notes if you want.

 

TOOLBAR LEFT TO RIGHT:

 

The PDF reader toolbar with 6 tools: 1) square with letter A, highlight text; 2) letter A underlined, underline text; 3) a sticky note, create a note; 4) letter T, add text; 5) a square has a dotted line all the way around it, select area; 6) a pencil, draw.

 

  • (1) Highlight text
  • (2) Underline text
  • (3) Create a note
  • (4) Add text
  • (5) Select area
  • (6) Draw

Hint!

Convert HTML text to PDF format by copying and pasting it into a Word document.  Use the Save As feature to save it as a PDF.  Drag and drop the PDF onto the matching citation in Zotero.  The blue dot will be replaced by a PDF icon.  Double click the icon to open the built-in reader.

Google Docs also works.  After you copy and paste into a Google Doc, go to File - Download - PDF Document.  Drag and drop the PDF as above.

PANEL 3

 

- CREATE TAGS, CONNECT RELATED ITEMS -

The third panel here is the same one on the main Zotero screen.  The default view is always Info, the article's citation.  The toolbar is the same.

 

RIGHT TOOLBAR, TOP TO BOTTOM:

 

Nine icons: (1) Syncing - 2 curved arrows form a circle; (2) A sheet of paper with the letter i in a circle; (3) A rectangle with a few horizontal lines in it; (4) A paperclip; (5) A Post It note; (6) A tiny Greek column library with a folder; (7) A paper hang tag; (8) Two chain links; (9) An arrow pointing to the right enclosed in a circle with a tiny drop down menu arrow on the side.

 

  • (1) Sync With Zotero.org
  • (2) Info
  • (3) Abstract
  • (4) Attachments
  • (5) Notes
  • (6) Libraries and Collections
  • (7) Tags
  • (8) Related
  • (9) Locate

Colorful, decorative horizontal line.