ZotFile Awesomifies Zotero Attachments

We’ve been on a Zotero streak at ProfHacker lately, writing about the Android apps Zandy and Scanner for Zotero, as well as ideas for taking better notes in Zotero. If you regularly attach PDFs or other document file types (TXT, RTF, DOC, etc.) to your Zotero items, then here is one more Zotero tool you ought to be aware of: ZotFile.

Developed by Joscha Legewie, a Columbia graduate student, ZotFile is a Firefox (or Standalone Zotero) extension that enhances—or awesomifies, as I’ve discovered—Zotero’s native attachment handling. ZotFile makes it easy to add, rename, and move attachments (for example, ZotFile will automatically add your most recently downloaded PDF as an attachment, and you can set up all sorts of automatic renaming conventions). ZotFile Reader is a complementary extension that—and this is so cool—can quickly send PDFs from Zotero to your iPad or other tablet or phone via Dropbox. And then, pull that PDF back into Zotero from your iPad after you’ve finished reading or annotating it. It’s brilliant.

While ZotFile and ZotFile Reader are currently two separate extensions, the latest beta combines them into one powerful Zotero tool. Check out ZotFile and let us know how you incorporate it into your research flow!

Perched Pink Post-It Paper Plane photo courtesy of AnxiousNut, Creative Commons Licensed