Can Zotero serve PDF files from a zotero:// link?

[A. James Phillips]

I'd like to make my Zotero files available to a webpage running on the same computer.  Does anyone know if Zotero has the capability to serve a PDF?

I have tried using the zotero://open-pdf/library/items/[itemKey] link detailed here but at the moment it just seems to open Zotero but does not select the file who itemKey I have chosen and it does not serve that file to the web browser I had issued the http request from.

I'm running 5.0.96.3 on Mac.

Many thanks!

ajp

[A. James Phillips]

Sorry I should make it clear I am not expecting zotero://open-pdf/library/items/1234 to serve the PDF to the browser; instead I am wondering if there is another endpoint that can?

And additionally that even that endpoint zotero://open-pdf/library/items/123 does not seem to work as expected.

I also think that as zotero is not a supported URL scheme so it would need to bind a localhost port to work and use the http URL scheme.

Thank you.

[Dan Stillman]

There's no way to serve attachment files via HTTP from Zotero at the moment, though it's possible this could exist at some point. We've talked about it specifically for serving images to Markdown editors, as an alternative to embedding data URIs [1].

zotero://open-pdf works in general. In Zotero 5 it should launch the PDF via your system-default PDF reader. In the Zotero beta, it will open the PDF in the built-in PDF reader. If either of those isn't working for you, post to the Zotero Forums with a Debug ID.

- Dan

[1] https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/93521/available-for-beta-testing-markdown-export-of-notes

[A. James Phillips]

Thank you Dan.  I didn't know Zotero had a public web API, but this + an OAuth app should allow users to fetch PDFs they have synced to their Zotero web store right?  That should solve my problem!

[Dan Stillman]

On 1/8/22 2:02 PM, A. James Phillips wrote:

Thank you Dan.  I didn't know Zotero had a public web API, but this + an OAuth app should allow users to fetch PDFs they have synced to their Zotero web store right?  That should solve my problem!

Yes, that's right.