Zotero has a library of 3rd part plugins that users can install, for free, to their main Zotero installation. Zotero nor the HJF Library supports these plugins. They are maintained by other groups and people who see to the upkeep and publication of these plugins. There is no guarantee that these plugins won't corrupt your Zotero database or break functionality, but on a whole, they are safe to use. Make sure you backup your Zotero library before using any of these plugins, just to be safe.
Zotero keeps a list of "approved" plugins on their website. Below we provide some information on the ones we have experience with and have found most useful in doing research.
ZotFile is a plugin that is used to manage file attachments in Zotero. In most cases, this involves doing one of the following:
Each of these serves a specific purpose more related to how each individual works within Zotero and not all of them will be useful or relative to every user. For example, if you prefer using Zotero's built-in PDF Reader, then you likely have little to no need for the ability to send PDFs to a tablet or other such device. Pick and choose what works best for you.
Attaching PDFs and Other Files
The first setting tab in the ZotFile Preferences is "General Settings." Here you can tell ZotFile which folder to search for when adding new file attachments to your citations. For example, you could set up your Downloads folder as this destination. Then any time you right click on a citation and tell ZotFile to attach a file, it will attach the most recently downloaded file to that citation from your Downloads folder.
Location of Files is a great way to automatically move attachments. Most of us do not pay for the Zotero storage option and instead, keep our PDFs right on our computer or use linked attachments which allows us to keep our PDFs in Google Drive so they are automatically backed up in some fashion.
One way to easily do this is to setup Google Drive to keep a specific folder dedicated to your Zotero attachments on your local storage. Set this folder in the ZotFile General Settings to be the "Custom Location" for linked files. Now, each time you use the Source Folder for Attach New Files option or simply drag and drop the file to attach to a citation, it will automatically move it to this Google Drive folder for you.
Using ZotFile to Send and Retrieve PDFs from a Tablet
Whether you use an iPad or some kind of eInk reader, you can use ZotFile to send them to your device. This allows you to keep the storage on your device freed up, with only the sources you're currently using being stored there, as well as to easily manage them within Zotero.
To start, make sure you are in the ZotFile Preferences found under the Tools menu. Click the second tab at the top of the ZotFile Preferences menu called "Tablet Settings."
The first thing you need to do is check the box that says "Use ZotFile to send and get files from tablet". Now that this is active, select your "Base Folder" where ZotFile will send the file to sync to your device. An important part of this step is to determine what file in Google Drive, Dropbox or whatever software you're using to sync files to and from the cloud you will send these files to. You will then need to make sure you tell the same software on the tablet you're using to sync that folder to the local storage. This allows you to avoid having to sync all your Zotero files to local storage on your tablet. We recommend that you create a new folder and name it something along the lines of "ZotFile Documents" or "Active PDFs", something that is only used to do this function. Then make sure you tell your tablet to always sync that folder to your device.
There are additional options below this but they will not be covered here. Feel free to experiment with them or look at the ZotFile help page for more information on what they do.
Renaming Rules
There are two ways to automatically rename files in Zotero:
Zotero's built-in function has some but fairly limited options for how files are renamed based on their citation information. ZotFile expands on that function greatly allowing you to determine letter case, how many authors to include in the file name, using dates, titles, and many other options found within the citation information for each item.
ZotFile uses a concept called "Wildcards" to determine a file's name. You can find a full list of these on ZotFile's site linked here. Take each one you want to use and put the corresponding wildcard into the fields under ZotFile Preferences, "Renaming Rules," "Format for all Item Types except Patents."
There are a number of "Additional Settings" for naming files below these fields. Select those that work best for you.
One option is to use the plugin Better BibTex which will create a Citation Key. A citation key is a combination of citation information to create a unique identifier for each item in your Zotero library. For example, one way to set it up is so each Citation Key reflects author(s) and date of publication. Here's how such a configuration would look: smith2022 OR smith.johnson2022 OR smith.etal2022 for when more than two authors are cited. Now set ZotFile to rename the file attachments in the same manner making it easy to search and find files from your cloud storage option (such as Google Drive) by using the citation key.