Hacker News Reader

Comment by akjssdk | Hacker News Reader

Only if you want to sync pdfs using the Zotero server does Zotero cost money. Anything else is completely free, including syncing your db (without pdf attachments). If you want to sync your pdfs you can point Zotero to a webDAV server, this has worked flawlessly for me.

View on HN

You can use something like Nextcloud to run your own webDav server, if that's something you are okay with. I haven't tried this, but I believe you can then share out files using Nextcloud via a unique link. Actually, I know the sharing works, just not sure if it's easy to do with a Zotero back-up of PDFs.

The most valuable workflow is the one you have been using and happy with. I wouldn't wish a changed workflow on anyone in this state. I would only suggest another way for someone who is unhappy and already regularly changing. Stick with what works.

Fair enough, but not every client is going to want to use the same operating systems, processors, be allowed to install third party software, etc. This might work in a strictly academic setting with few stakeholders, but in professional publishing, interoperability makes these systems unpopular. Downvoting that won’t change reality. I guess there is not much interest in feedback or possible routes to improvement.

You're getting down voted because you comment seems uninformed. AFAIK Zotero is available on every OS that Firefox runs on, for example. Also you talk professional publishing, what does that exactly mean? Zotero is a reference manager, so largely aimed at academic writing (because they tend to be the ones who cité and use references the most). I would be surprised if any other setting has more stakeholders, scientific articles often have lots of coauthors, from different groups and I can sayas an academic keeping track of thousands of papers by grepping through PDFs is not really feasible.

So maybe your use case does not match what a reference manager is for, but you also have not brought any informed criticism.

Let’s say you are working on a paper with 6 coauthors for a major medical journal, hypothetically. Dr. So and so in Russia, another in Japan, a third in California, and a few others. Would you mind reviewing this draft? Oh, yeah, by the way, you need to install Zotero before you can edit the references. How do you think that is going to go? How about dealing with a graphic designer in Hungary who can’t copy the text out of the document because there are weird hyperlinks that copy out with the references and don’t work with the InDesign. Oh, and the PM at DDB says the citation manager crashed and could you please resend the PDFs. I have worked with some big name journals and there are major interoperability issues that make this software undesirable for publishing in many scenarios.

For what it's worth, I've seen the same sort of interoperability issues with all similar software. Author A wants "the latest copy of the Endnote file" but nobody's using Endnote; Author B insists on emailing PDFs as attachments and uses their email as their personal literature database; Author C has set up a Dropbox full of PDFs but nobody uses it; Author D has created a shared Google spreadsheet with links to each paper but it's always out of date; etc etc etc.

These aren't issues with any one piece of software, they're issues with coordination, as are the examples you mention.

Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense. Maybe the issues I am referring to are more to do with the general frustrations of putting together a paper with multiple authors and less to do with specific software.

This is why I just use Google docs and Google scholar... when i need to do the refs, I just alphabetize in a sheet. Frontiers has low barrier citation expectations. If I have to do ACM numbering I do it in word, as last step.

This is the way. Numbering should happen right before submission.

I'm not really seeing it. In most of the workflows I've used, one person is responsible for maintaining most of the document including the bibliography. The other coauthors will add in notes requesting to add in a new item, etc.

Zotero is used primarily for managing the PDF library, the actual writing will happen in Word, LateX, etc. The reference list produced by Zotero is just text.

I don't see any real requirement that everyone working on a project would need to actually use Zotero, though I guess it would be handy to keep a coordinated shared library of papers.

Maybe I'm wrong and it is a very valuable tool I should be using. I just haven't seen it used in my industry over the past 2 decades. All I have heard about are major problems arising with use of this kind of software. Surely that experience has to count for something? I don't have any problem with others using it. I am just saying that when I submit a paper to a major journal, these kinds of tools generally are not used because of interoperability issues that inevitably come up when multiple people work on a project.

Maybe it actually is something I should try and it sounds like there have been some major improvements over the past few years. I dislike EndNote, but that doesn't mean the same issues exist with Zotero, so maybe I will give it a try. I should also define my terms better. When I talk about professionals publishing, I am referring more to corporate publishing houses, agencies, and pharma and chemical industry publishing. Academic publishing is probably the most professional type of publishing of all, so I should clarify that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com