Academic workflow

Note Series
#1

Hi I have had the Boox Note for about 2 years during which time it has had little use as I have tried unsuccessfully to incorporate it into an academic workflow. Like most researchers I use referencing software, in my case Zotero. ZotEZ at least enables me to see and read PDFs in my Zotero library on the Note rather than have to use Dropbox. I have tried numerous PDF readers as a replacement for Neo Reader which does not work with ZotEZ and they are all difficult to use for annotations and have saving issues. If anyone has any suggestions to avoid the Note becoming a ‘brick’ I would be grateful. I need to be able do the obvious i.e., open, read, annotate and save PDFs on the Note and be able to see the changes when I open the file in Zotero on my PC and vice versa

Thanks

6 Likes
Pdf annotations export
#2

Maybe Syncthing could help.

https://syncthing.net
On the Note, you can install the Syncthing-Fork or Syncthing app.

I’ve just tried this out myself, but not with Zotero. What I did is to share and sync a folder on my desktop PC and the folder where the PDF was located on my Max 3. After making annotations in Neo Reader, they would be visible on the desktop (e.g. in Acrobat Reader) immediately (or after a manual rescan in Syncthing). Not sure if something like this is what you’d need, but maybe it could work for you with Zotero.

2 Likes
#3

Thanks I will look into this. Can’t help thinking that if Neo Reader could open from ZotEZ that would help…

#4

I would like to do the exact same as the original post, but with a Max 3. Please let us know if the syncthing solution works! This is the main thing preventing me from purchasing a boox product.

#5

Hi after reading several posts and contacting ZotEZ it seems that Boox haven’t adjusted the Neo Reader settings to allow it to use 3rd party apps. From the posts this seems to be a longstanding issue and perhaps the only way to get it resolved is for people to hold off on buying. This might help Boox to work out if they are serious about selling to the academic market.

4 Likes
#6

Thanks for the reply. This really is too bad… It would be perfect for academics if they implemented this feature. I wonder what’s preventing it?

2 Likes
#7

Hello, do you mean that it shall open the files directly with Neoreader from ZotEZ?

1 Like
#8

Yes that’s right as ZotEZ is the Zotero android app.

Thanks

1 Like
#9

Not sure but have just responded to a post from Claire. Integration with reference managers would be wonderful however Boox achieves it ie., direct or via third party apps.

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#10

Great. Yes, the ability for NeoReader to open a PDF from a third party app, make edits, and then save/overwrite that file so the app can sync up the edits for use on other devices would be perfect.

Let’s hope Claire can get this request in front of the Boox developers soon.

3 Likes
#11

if Boox fixes this, and somebody makes a youtube tutorial to show how to integrate their products with reference managers, sooooo many grad students are going to start buying these.

6 Likes
#12

Absolutely agree. It must make business sense for Boox. Claire is there an update on this thread please? Thanks

#13

I fully agree with the main ideas discussed in this thread. Boox Note would be much more useful if the academic workflow gets easier and more efficient.
As mentioned: open a PDF from a reference manager (or another app) and annotate it directly from Neo Reader.

#14

Many useful enhancements could be done if things were a bit more open wrt the Onyx apps. As it stands, according to @claire, we have to live with the limitations, I think.

#15

Really sorry for the late reply here. This request has been forwarded to our R&D team already. We do pay high attention to this important feature for our users. Hope this would be available in the next firmware update.

2 Likes
#16

Could you kindly provide other Apps like ZotEZ? We would submit this to our R&D team at the same time.

1 Like
#17

Hi Claire ZotEZ can be found here: https://zotez2.ezbio.net/

Worth you also talking to the Zotero Developers. Link below to Zotero and the ZotEZ discussion on the Zotero forum.

https://www.zotero.org/

Regards

#18

this would be great, but the problem is kind of deeper, since Neo reader annotations need to be exported.

#19

Mendeley and Zotero are really the main ones, but Mendeley already works sort of well on the Boox Max 2, however many academics would prefer to use Zotero because it is open-source.

2 Likes
#20

This could be easily done by providing a service running on the eReader and an application running on the Windows side, registered as a PDF viewer. When this Windows-side proxy would be called to open a PDF from Zotero (or other app), it would transmit the PDF residing on the Windows filesystem to the service on the e-Reader. This service would in turn open up the PDF in Neo Reader, let you mark it up and then detect when the file was saved. At that point it would send the PDF back to the Windows-side proxy application which would either overwrite the previous version or back that up first and then overwrite it.

1 Like