Syncing notes and extracted annotations to Notion database

[shantanusingh16]

Hi, I'd really like to thank you for providing such an amazing plugin. I am really grateful since this simplifies my workflow by a significant extent and saves me a huge effort.

However, as part of my workflow, I do annotate and comment in the pdf files attached to every item in my zotero collection. I use the zotfile extension to extract those annotations out as a separate item. Is it possible to sync these extracted annotations to notion as well?

[dvanoni]

Hi @shantanusingh16, thanks for the kind feedback!

I think it should be possible to sync those annotations to Notion. Do you have an idea of what would be the best place to save them in Notion? Do you think they should be added directly to the body of the Notion page, or would it make sense to have each Zotero note be its own sub-page on the Notion page?

As body text	As sub-page

Unfortunately, I won't be able to work on this right away as my time is limited, but I like this idea!

[shantanusingh16]

Hi @dvanoni

I think having it in the body of the same page under the heading "Extracted Annotations" should be fine. I personally try to keep the nesting minimum to ensure we get to the required content sooner. I can look at your code and see if I can implement this. We can discuss the implementation details, on google meet or something, if you want over a call sometime.

[panyuz]

I think notes generated by user should be sync to notion database too.

[jigarp12892]

Hello! @dvanoni , I just set up this plugin and I am so happy with it!

I am here to offer my +1 to exporting both annotations and notes generated. My 2 cents toward making this scalable are : each annotation goes under the heading "annotation" and each note's content goes under the heading {note name} in the body of the page.

Thank you for making this for us. You deserve an honorary PhD for helping out us academics.

[dvanoni]

@jigarp12892, thank you for the kind feedback! 😊

I think your suggestion sounds like a great approach!

[jigarp12892]

@jigarp12892, thank you for the kind feedback! 😊

I think your suggestion sounds like a great approach!

I understand you have other commitments would like to help with anything that can make it easier for you.

[22-modifier]

This would be the exact functionality I've been looking for! Less for writing papers, but would allow my co-surgical residents and I to generate a more organized, communal annotated bibliography of key papers that guide clinical practice. Currently nothing is out there makes it easy to navigate notes linked to a bibliography and the paper itself. Thank you for the already awesome tool you've created!

[realCrush]

This would be a super nice feature, and can let people get main idea or valueble part of articles with a glance, as a PhD or researcher, this save lives when facing tens of hundreds PDF files!🤗

[theotheo]

I'm totally agree it's very useful features. I want to try to implement it. @dvanoni What do you think about it?

[dvanoni]

@theotheo, I'd be happy if you want to try implementing this!

One of the challenges I foresee with implementing this is finding a way to sync the annotations content into the Notion page without overwriting anything else that may already be there. I imagine that some folks would want to both sync their annotations from Zotero but also take additional notes (or add other content) directly in Notion.

One way I was thinking of approaching this was using a technique similar to how Notero currently correlates Zotero items with Notion pages—i.e. saving a link in Zotero with the unique URL of the Notion page. I think we might be able to use a similar approach, but instead of the page URL we'd use the ID of the block on the page containing the annotations synced from Zotero.

Then we could have logic along these lines:

• If a block ID is not saved in Zotero, assume we haven't synced annotations into Notion yet
  • Create a new block on the page and save its ID into Zotero
  • Add all the annotations content as children of the new block
• If a block ID is saved in Zotero, assume we've previously synced annotations
  • Delete all the children of the block (because I imagine it would be too challenging to update annotations in place)
  • Add all the annotations content as children of the block

I'm not sure which block type would be best for the top-level block here—perhaps a paragraph? I was thinking the new Toggle Headings they recently announced would be a nice fit for this, but unfortunately it doesn't look like they've added them to the API yet.

To be honest, I haven't worked with the blocks part of the API yet, so I really have no idea if this is the best approach. I'm curious to hear what you're thinking!

[mai-m-ai]

hi @dvanoni，notero is an ideal plugin for me!! thank for your great job! i think it's a way to sync the annotations as “Toggle Headings”. First, add the annotations as a “page” in the main body through API. Second, change the “page” to “Toggle Headings” in notion by users themselves. when there is a new update in zotero, just sync a new page and deleted the old toggle headings. it may be not a directly way, but i think it' s a way.

[mtillman14]

Hi, I am also adding my +1 to this idea! But, I wonder if it could be an option whether to do this syncing or not? I worry that having hundreds of annotated PDFs in a Notion page will drastically reduce the load speed. Is that a real concern?

[dvanoni]

@mtillman14 to be honest, I have no idea what the impact would be on Notion load speed, but I think it's a good point to bring up! Either way, I think making this feature configurable is a great idea. I imagine that some folks might not want to sync annotations as part of their workflow, so providing the flexibility to choose whether to enable this feature sounds smart to me.

[bvernot]

+1 to sync annotations! TBH, I thought that Notero already did that, and it was a big part of why I just installed it.

I liked @dvanoni 's structure for how to include annotations, at least conceptually. I have no idea about implementation issues.

One additional possibility: It would be nice if the color of the annotation was also preserved in the Notion page - this might help when visually scanning through them, so it's not just a wall of text?

Would image/area annotations also be synced?

[advaitathreya]

I like all of the ideas proposed here, and if I may add another suggestion for an option, I would like to embed the PDFs that I have stored in Zotero's storage in the Notion page so that I have my marked up PDF within the Notion database. It is possible to manually do this right now, so if Notero could have an option to add an embedded URL as a page block that would be awesome! Echoing everyone here, thank you for making this plugin!!

[dvanoni]

@advaitathreya thanks for the feedback!

I'd love to be able to automatically embed PDFs, but unfortunately it's currently not possible due to limitations with Notion. See the How to sync attached files into Notion section of the readme for more details.

[advaitathreya]

Looks like uploading local files automatically is not possible, but how about embedding PDFs of Zotero Storage files?

It looks like embedding PDF URLs is possible through the Notion API.

Retrieving the PDF view URL for the zotero item should be possible through the getBestAttachment method, and then modifying the URL to be of the form expected (Zotero file view URLs are of the form 'https://api.zotero.org/users/<UserID>/items/<ItemID>/file/view?key=<ZoteroAPIKey>').

I've been trying to do this and I think I have parts of it that are working, but I've never worked with JavaScript or APIs before, so I'm struggling with a few aspects. I will see if I can get a rudimentary working script to share, but maybe this would be faster for you? Or maybe I am completely off and it isn't possible, in which case apologies 😬

[josh-ashkinaze]

I think it would make sense that the notes sync can be configured to be either (1) Text in the body of a notion page or (2) An actual item field of the note called "Annotations"

(2) is convenient for short notes, but can affect load time. Anecdotally, from using Notion as a bibliography tool: If you put a large amount of text in the body of the page, this will not affect load time. However, a large amount of text as an item field will affect load time.

[dvanoni]

i think it's a way to sync the annotations as “Toggle Headings”.

In regards to the suggestion from @mai-m-ai above, the Notion team just added support for toggle headings to the API!

[eelshaikh]

i think it's a way to sync the annotations as “Toggle Headings”.

In regards to the suggestion from @mai-m-ai above, the Notion team just added support for toggle headings to the API!

How can this be used to transfer annotations?

[Prathyusha-konda]

Hi, thank you so much for the plugin, great functionality so far. Here to +1 the ideas on this thread. Definitely adding the feature to sync notes and annotations will be fantastic!! :)

[22-modifier]

@advaitathreya thanks for the feedback!

I'd love to be able to automatically embed PDFs, but unfortunately it's currently not possible due to limitations with Notion. See the How to sync attached files into Notion section of the readme for more details.

I wonder if the PDF itself truly has to be embedded... I feel like the goal is to have everything in the same place, minimizing the number of different apps. Now that Zotero has a more robust PDF reader/annotation tool (with associated iPad app), I wonder if the PDF truly needs to be embedded into Notion (particularly if the PDF annotations become tough to sync).

I tried to create a simple workaround that failed (just appending "/reader") to the Zotero URI in a notion table formula. Unfortunately Notion formulas can't output a URL. The web-based reader also doesn't allow annotations (yet). Would be nice if a Zotero URI link could just open the PDF in the desktop app.

[HameedahAhmad]

Hello, Thank you so much for the plugin, +1 for this ideas "sync annotation"

[a1576799]

I am looking forward to it. Currently, I have to take notes in zotero, export the markdown note, and paste it in Notion. However, the zetoro link is missing, so it cannot get back to zotero. Could you please also consider this in the future? THANKS!

[magdalenasabat]

+1 for "sync annotation"

[dr-ta-lia]

Hi, @dvanoni , Let me first tell you how much do I appreciate your work on zotero-notion bridge. I see that there have been quite quiet here in the past 3 months.. I understand that this have been more of a passion protect for you to help your partner with research. Notero has indeed become so much bigger! Thank you for great work and hope you keep it up! /+1 for notes sync from me ;)/

[do-not-perceive-me]

I like the idea of having the some short notes in the properties column.

I'm using a variation of the Advanced Database example, in the literature review view:

A possible idea for a workflow:

1. Define the names of your Notion database properties in Notero. For this example, it would be, Relevance, Problem or Purpose, etc.

2. (A) Notero creates a new note in Zotero with those properties as subheadings ( I would prefer this one but maybe it's harder to split the text and send it to Notion?)

(B) Notero creates separate notes for each of those properties

3. the text that you add under those notes gets pushed to the Notion database in that item property.

For longer text annotations:

I have no clue how to help with the zotero plug in, but I have some experience with the notion API and how to format pages so let me know if that's something that I could help with.

[Sayujr]

Absolute +1! This would complete the workflow! I think a simple text addition to the notion page under a defined heading like "Annotations" would suffice.

[jinghan23]

Hello, thank you so much for the plugin! Here to +1 for this ideas "sync annotation"

[machado-t]

+1