What is the best way to annotate books without making a duplicate?

[pleiadesc]

helo!

i use calibre to organize and manage the metadata of books, and export it into zotero to read and annotate using pdf xchange reader, so far the process is working, the problem im seeing here is that i need to have 2 books (1book in calibre and 1 book in zotero for annotation) to make this to work, and in the future will balloon the space requirement.

i need to have 2 copies, is 1 for original copy and 1 copy for annotation because if you save a book with annotation it will change the size of it.

is there a reader that can annotate pdf without changing the size of the book?

what is your process here? care to share it?

TIA!

[BetterRed]

@pleiadesc - see ==>> Annotating PDFs in OS X w/o modifying the file. This utilises a pdf reader/annotator called SKIM which saves annotations in a sidecar file (.SKIM), but SKIM is only available for OS X.

I'm not aware of anything similar for Linux or Windows, but there are many pdf reader/annotators, especially for Windows, maybe one of them can save the annotations in sidecar files like SKIM.

How do other Zotero users handle this, did you ask in the Zotero forums?

BR

[pleiadesc]

Thank you BetterRed!

pdf-xchange also has a feature to export the annotations, i will check if this will stick.

Thank you!

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

Thank you BetterRed!

pdf-xchange also has a feature to export the annotations, i will check if this will stick.

Thank you!

Yep, should be possible with PDF Xchange.

When you do the initial annotations, export the FDF to the book folder (it will get the same file name as the PDF), and close the PDF without saving. Then open the book folder and drop the FDF on the book details -- yes effectively onto itself. This will get its existence recorded in the database, then it wont get lost on renames and moves or generate errors when you run Check Library.

When you open the PDF you can import the FDF from the book folder. If you change the annotations just export them over the top of the existing FDF.

I use View specific format (I even gave it the 'V' keyboard shortcut) so that I can see at a glance if I have any sidecar/buddy type files - e.g. I use multi-page tiffs to store alternative covers. And/or you could define a column icon to display something distinctive if there's an FDF, this should suit.



Added : I just noticed there are two formats for the export - FDF and XFDF, I'd probably opt for the XFDF given the preponderance of XML. I was looking to see if there was an Automatic import of like named FDF/XFDF files - didn't see anything. Probably because Adobe in their infinite wisdom managed to conflate PDF Forms and PDF Comments. Ψ²

BR

[pleiadesc]

helo BR!

I see your also using the export annotation, im testing it and i hope it will stick in my process. have you tried saving the annotations in a copy of pdf?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by pleiadesc

helo BR!

I see your also using the export annotation, im testing it and i hope it will stick in my process. have you tried saving the annotations in a copy of pdf?

I am a long time user of PDF XChange, although I've never used the export comments feature. If I ever knew it existed before I had forgotten, but once you gave me a hint it was easy enough to locate and investigate.

You can save the annotations within the PDF via the File->Save options. If you export them to an XFDF file and then try to exit PDF XChange without saving the PDF, you will be asked to confirm that's what you want.

I saw DaltonST's response to your query, I have considerable sympathy with his reluctance to get caught up with screen scraping. I first crossed swords with it in the 1980's scraping data off green screen IBM terminal emulators - it was a lousy idea then and they were dumber than dumb character based devices under stringent control of the mainframe gestapo. It never ceases to amaze me how much screen scraping continues to be used today.

BR

[pleiadesc]

Thank you BetterRed for the advice! i'm considering removing zotero for books and just use pdf-xchange and calibre, anyways i just need the annotations.

Thanks for the reminder, its sad calibre and zotero dont work together. i will ask zotero support.