[HN Gopher] Google Scholar PDF Reader
___________________________________________________________________
Google Scholar PDF Reader
Author : gerroo
Score : 400 points
Date : 2024-03-20 16:03 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (scholar.googleblog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (scholar.googleblog.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| That's nice and all, but google scholar recently removed all the
| 'cited by' 'related articles' and other links from the HTML pages
| of google scholar. It was like this for about two months before
| they restored the functionality. It likely they will remove it
| again soon. Google scholar is getting worse, not better. The
| google devs have no idea what a typical academic's computer is
| like around the world. They dev for their lived experience and
| it's just not applicable. A javascript (slow, computationally
| expensive) pdf reader is just another aspect of this ignorance.
| xnacly wrote:
| I couldn't agree more, I dont want you displaying the pdf, let
| me download the file and view it with zathura
| adr1an wrote:
| Or Sioyek (vim keybindings!), Okular, Xournalpp, Zotero, ...
| adolph wrote:
| A js pdf reader they control has monetization possibilities.
| Slip in an interstitial page for Naturally Fun Arkansas with an
| article from Nature. You don't want scholar going the way of
| reader do you?
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| What are the base hardware requirements for a JavaScript PDF
| reader where it isn't "slow"?
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| Alongside this, I have found that Google Scholar's search has
| become noticeably worse in the last year or so. I can search
| for an author's name and a few keywords from a paper title and
| it won't show up, even if the paper has like 5000 citations.
| malshe wrote:
| Wow so I am not going mad! I had the same experience and it
| almost feels like Google is trying to recommend me papers
| based on my past searches. I hope they revert to their
| earlier algorithm
| google234123 wrote:
| Are you sure this actually happened? I never noticed this. can
| anyone else collaborate? Maybe you installed some extension
| that messed with the html
| superkuh wrote:
| Yes, I confirmed it with 3 other people on IRC a couple
| months ago. I didn't know google scholar had restored it
| until I checked right before I wrote the above post. I
| thought the links were still gone. They had been the last
| time I'd used google scholar about 3 weeks ago. Back then I
| also confirmed it myself first using 3 different computers, 4
| browsers (with JS disabled), coming from 3 different IP
| addresses, both logged in to google and logged out. I
| probably wouldn't have started writing the post at all if I
| didn't think they were still gone.
|
| I figure in addition to the feedback they received from me
| (and presumably others) at the time they saw a drop in usage
| and restored the functional version. But they'll try again.
| google234123 wrote:
| I think you are wrong - I don't recall seeing this.
| Screenshots of scholar on twitter from feb, jan, dec all
| show those links
| superkuh wrote:
| Check at 2024 Feb 08 09:54:00 (am) CST. I definitely
| didn't confabulate the memory because the initial
| conversation about it (with others) is in my IRC logs.
| Sorry I don't have any screenshots of my own. Perhaps it
| was A/B testing or something.
| smeeth wrote:
| Check out https://openalex.org
|
| I'm pretty optimistic that by the time google scholar really
| goes to shit they'll be good enough to pick up the slack.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Does anyone have any recommendations for good local PDF readers
| for Windows? I've been reading a lot of various papers recently,
| and clicking on a citation in Acrobat reader is very frustrating.
| The document scrolls to show the citation in view, but doesn't
| clearly show it in the long list that most papers have, and then
| I have to scroll up to where I was since it doesn't seem to have
| a working back feature.
| drmaximus wrote:
| Sioyek is a PDF viewer designed exactly for reading research
| papers and textbooks: https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek.
| random3 wrote:
| Sioyek seems awesome, especially vim inspired features. Too
| bad u (undo) doesn't work and there doesn't seem to be a way
| to undo. Am I missing something or is it laking it?
| severine wrote:
| I found this related issue:
| https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek/issues/633
| random3 wrote:
| Improved over that
| https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek/issues/1011
| jacktang wrote:
| looks cool
| wslh wrote:
| I am interested in knowing why and how Google Chrome is not
| enough?
| somethingsome wrote:
| Mostly too slow for a lot of content, not every content is
| supported, not easy to keep it open at the right page, no
| comments, not easy to find the right tab, etc.
| mikepo wrote:
| I've been using Sumatra PDF on Windows to read papers (and as
| my default PDF reader) for more than a decade. Clicking on a
| citation takes you to the bibliography page and lands the cited
| paper at the top of the screen. Then Alt-leftarrow brings you
| back.
| user- wrote:
| ive always used SumatraPDF because its super fast and free
| eitally wrote:
| What you might consider if finding an ebook reader app and
| using that. I had a similar issue but on Android (for ebooks
| not in kindle format). I ended up with Librera but there are
| several. Turns out it's also equally great at academic or work
| PDFs.
| somethingsome wrote:
| Just so you know: normally it scroll down so that the reference
| is on top of the page.
|
| But most importantly.. ALT+'left arrow' allows you to go back
| before you clicked on the citation! It doesn't work all the
| time, but usually it does after some left arrows ;)
|
| Also, in Android: you can click on the 'scrolling sign' on the
| right of the pdf and specify the page, or see the link to 'jump
| back' to before you clicked on a link!
|
| I hope that will help
| abhayhegde wrote:
| Irrespective of the OS, I recommend Zotero
| (https://www.zotero.org/).
| Nicksil wrote:
| Mozilla Firefox has put a lot of time into their PDF reader.
|
| https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/browsers/
| Depurator wrote:
| Zotero's V7 reader is great, built on pdfjs (Mozillas pdf
| reader) and adds neat things like notations and dark mode.
| random3 wrote:
| is it possible to point Zotero to a local dir with papers, or
| am I forced to import documents into it?
| specproc wrote:
| I love zotero. The combination of annotation, highlights,
| document management and a healthy plug-in ecosystem are just
| killer for me.
|
| It feels a bit dated sometimes, but I'm yet to find anything
| that comes close.
| kristjansson wrote:
| It looks a lot nicer after the recent design update!
| wolverine876 wrote:
| IIRC, pdfjs is used by Google also, and was based on Foxit? ?
| Does anyone know?
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| PDF.js came out of Mozilla, not Foxit.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Yes, but I think Mozilla may have started with code from
| Foxit.
| thristian wrote:
| The PDFium plugin that was part of Chrome was based on
| C++ code from Foxit.
|
| PDFjs was written in JS from day one, and (as far as I
| know) was not based on any previous PDF reader.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Thanks.
|
| BTW, I didn't mean they necessarily used the actual Foxit
| code, but it was a starting point maybe reimplemented in
| JS.
| cxr wrote:
| In no sense is PDF.js related to Foxit except that they
| are both PDF readers.
| elektor wrote:
| Where are you accessing Zotero V7? My understanding is that
| it is currently V6.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.zotero.org/download/
| zuminator wrote:
| https://www.zotero.org/support/beta_builds
| elektor wrote:
| Thanks! I'll try it out
| garyiskidding wrote:
| I use Zotero and really like it, especially when working with
| others. This was the first thing that came into my mind on
| this thread.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Same question but for MacOS. There don't seem to be many good
| ones for it.
| airstrike wrote:
| Unfortunately, Preview has been the best reader in my
| experience. I say "unfortunately" not because it is
| inherently bad, but because it is a sad state of affairs when
| nobody can build something better than the barebones native
| tool
| moritz wrote:
| Try Skim
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Just found this one I hadn't seen before, free version may
| suffice: https://highlightsapp.net/
| airstrike wrote:
| SumatraPDF if you want speed above all else
|
| DrawboardPDF if you want something more full featured and like
| to annotate, highlight, bookmark and whatnot, particularly if
| there's any chance you'll also use a stylus
| Tomte wrote:
| Okular. You don't need the rest of KDE. It has a Windows
| installer and I think it's also in the Windows Store.
| aragonite wrote:
| Jumping back works in SumatraPDF (backspace).
|
| STDU Viewer might also be worth looking into. Default shortcut
| for jumping back is ctrl+z.
| Configure0251 wrote:
| Zotero!
| ttul wrote:
| Now all they need is a way to grab documents from SciHub..
| abhayhegde wrote:
| This looks great! Since they link it all to one's Gmail account,
| I wonder if they implement saving annotations to these PDFs and
| have them live on your Drive or elsewhere.
|
| Edit: Also, Chrome now defaults to this extension for rendering
| any PDFs you load.
| meekaaku wrote:
| Does anyone know of a library (or reading material) that can
| render a pdf (mostly architectural drawings) on to webgl canvas
| as actual vectors not image?
| me_jumper wrote:
| Not sure if that's what you are looking for but mupdf can
| render to SVG.
| gcr wrote:
| WebGL is inherently a vector-to-raster technology, it's always
| backed by a pixel buffer. One might argue that even PDFjs works
| this way with its calls to the canvas API.
|
| What are you trying to do? Why is webgl the key here?
| meekaaku wrote:
| Basically I am looking to render pdf of architectural
| drawings onto webgl (because 2d context is too slow), and
| maintain the vector information in the drawings (ie lines,
| arcs). I know webgl is eventually raster, but I want to
| pan/zoom while retaining the crispness of vector lines.
| alecco wrote:
| Most important papers can be read with highlighting at
| https://www.semanticscholar.org/ (PDF Semantic Reader, skimming
| assist)
| lxgr wrote:
| Looks great, but can you imagine Google pulling the rug under an
| academic's document/citation database?
|
| I don't even want to imagine having to migrate all annotations
| and citations to something else when they inevitably pull the
| plug on it some years down the road.
| resolutebat wrote:
| Huh? This tool just parses PDFs, it doesn't require academics
| to actually do anything.
| lxgr wrote:
| Hm, I got the impression they store notes and annotations to
| your Google account, but maybe I'm mistaken.
| glial wrote:
| The Chrome Web Store page doesn't say anything about
| annotations.
| SamBam wrote:
| Has anyone tried installing this? It says "PDFs on all sites will
| have a new look in Chrome."
|
| This makes me nervous. I'm often looking at PDFs that are
| embedded in a page (either grad school software for commenting on
| PDFs, or publishers' sites). Is it going to play nicely with
| those? Is this only for navigating directly to a PDF?
| gnicholas wrote:
| My guess (as someone whose company makes a PDF extension for
| Chrome) is that it may intercept embedded PDFs as well.
| Sometimes sites use iframes or the like, and those get
| intercepted. But if the PDF is displayed through some sort of
| third party tool then it would be unaffected. Just my 2C/!
| cygnion wrote:
| Capturing and visualizing research knowledge is personally an
| exciting space. I feel that deep reading and absorbing content
| continues to be challenging, due to the ever-increasing amount of
| published research, rudimentary reading apps (Google PDF reader
| finally addressing issue with easily looking up references), and
| due to somewhat disconnected tools for reading and note-taking.
| Similar to the readers piggy-backing on the PDFjs library, I've
| developed an app that helps me capture and organize personal
| research knowledge [1]. Additionally, visualizations and
| customizable contexts for notes help to recall and link
| information.
|
| [1] https://www.knowledgegarden.io/
| chipdart wrote:
| Zotero does a good job at it, doesn't it?
| KingMob wrote:
| As a daily Zotero user, not really. The nicest thing I can
| say about it is, it has plugins and is FOSS. Maybe the new
| 7.0 release will blow me away, but I've been waiting for it
| to get out of beta forever.
|
| More fundamentally, we need to stop disseminating scholarly
| work as PDFs, a format primarily designed for print. Plain
| HTML would be an improvement. Even better than HTML would be
| an extended variant with scholarly-specific semantic markup
| and universal, animated, explorable figures. Embedded
| notebooks would be cool, too, but disseminating data would
| still be a major challenge. (And I don't just mean
| storage/transfer; a lot of researchers are reluctant to share
| source data to the world.)
| Unlisted6446 wrote:
| So I'm a researcher that almost always uses pdfs... Does
| HTML have the reproducibility that PDF promises? My feeling
| is that if I store a PDF, it'll look the same in a decade.
| But is HTML the same way? It seems like it relies on the
| web browser and many other things... How would one manage
| things like images and gifs? Is there a way to keep
| everything into one HTML file that's easily shareable and
| feels secure?
| telegtron wrote:
| The potential to freeze an HTML page in time with minimal
| changes at render time is already there. [0] Such an
| ability can even be baked directly into the rendered HTML
| page so the viewer would be able to download a copy of
| the page as it is seen at a given time. Other archiving
| facilities, such as archive.org, take static snapshots of
| accessible pages if allowed by the publisher of the page
| and requested by anyone who wants to make that snapshot.
|
| My point is that it is possible to achieve in principle
| and in practice, albeit that might be practiced as often
| as one would like to see.
|
| -------
|
| [0] See SingleFile by gildas at
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-
| file/: "Save an entire web page--including images and
| styling--as a single HTML file."
| hju22_-3 wrote:
| I like SingleFile, but it's not perfect. It usually works
| just fine, but will occasionally drop the ball depending
| on the type of JavaScript on the page.
|
| For example, I once backed up a page using it, and while
| it got all the content, it did not grab the JavaScript
| necessary for the images to display correctly.
| cygnion wrote:
| I explored tools to export/interchange PDF to HTML in the
| KnowledgeGarden app, but the results were not optimal,
| suffering from non-standard layout and poor typesetting
| of equations. Publishers of scholarly articles generate
| web pages of papers, but they're not replicas of PDF
| files.
|
| Re. self-contained HTML (and slightly off-topic), look at
| TiddlyWiki, which contains data/code/layout all in one
| interactive, local or hosted HTML. Extensibility,
| plugins, and community of contributors are some key
| highlights, among others.
|
| [1] https://www.tiddlywiki.com
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| Machines and humans can both easily use HTML/XML.
| Extracting information from PDF's is so much harder that
| there's deep learning products dedicated to doing it.
| They still make mistakes, too.
|
| I'd much rather have something akin to the CHM files
| where everything I need is in one file, easy to analyze,
| and has good readers.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I'd like to see PDFs move to Computational Notebooks. One
| can dream.
| gerroo wrote:
| That'd be so nice. Imagine executing the code for an ai
| paper and seeing the beautiful visualizations as you read
| it.
| cxr wrote:
| > Does HTML have the reproducibility that PDF promises?
| My feeling is that if I store a PDF, it'll look the same
| in a decade.
|
| Feelings and promises are each one thing. Reality is
| another. PDF doesn't even look "the same" today. I have
| serious questions about how often folks who think that
| PDF is reliably consistent from system to system step
| outside their bubble and just how diverse their setups
| are that they're testing on.
|
| > is HTML the same way?
|
| Well the status-quo for copy-and-paste in HTML isn't
| dogshit, it's comparatively trivial to find and use tools
| that can thoroughly and exhaustively search your
| collection (or even write your own), and HTML is a dead
| simple plain-text format that if worst comes to worst you
| can read with your eyes (unlike needing to run a bunch of
| inscrutable code from a PostScript subset through an
| interpreter before you can do anything with it). So, no,
| I wouldn't call them the same.
| chipdart wrote:
| > As a daily Zotero user, not really. The nicest thing I
| can say about it is, it has plugins and is FOSS. Maybe the
| new 7.0 release will blow me away, but I've been waiting
| for it to get out of beta forever.
|
| Can you elaborate where you think Zotero drops the ball?
| drhelix wrote:
| one major issue with zotero is the lack of android
| support. they are working on an android version or app or
| something since forever.
|
| then is the way you store the pfds. if you want to sync
| between multiple computers you have to either know how to
| work with webdav or know how to point zotero at the
| location where you have your pdfs or (what they most
| certainly love) pay a lot of money for not so much
| storage space on their system. that last thing is what i
| don't like because i just don't trust anyone these days.
| you get invested in a system, build your routine around
| it only for them to shut it down, sell it watever and
| then puff you have to start over.
|
| people keep calling zotero foss but if they were truly
| foss they would have a much more transparent way for
| people to roll their own selfhosted zotero server.
| instead, what they have is a dump of an old version, with
| next to zero documentation and a bunch of stubborn people
| that have managed to get something working but not quite.
|
| I get that they are trying to make money but I am sure
| they could do that and be more transparent.
|
| The other thing is the reliance on so many plugins. While
| zotero itself may last a while, who can say anything
| about the many devs of the many plugins that you end up
| relying on in order to make zotero bow to your routine? I
| like zotfile and a few others, but how long are they
| going to last? Also, reinstalling my system is a huge
| pain to get back to my routine because I have to remember
| all the settings for each and every plugin I install.
| They should come up with a way to save all these settings
| and restore them, and no don't do it through another
| plugin!
| omnster wrote:
| Here's a guide I found useful to set up zotero storage.
| In brief, it relies on zotfile to flatten the storage
| (keep all pdfs in one directory) and better bibtex.
|
| I realized that it helped me to get rid of exactly the
| pain with fresh installs that you mention. I realized
| that the two plugins give me most of the functionality
| that I want.
|
| https://habr.com/ru/articles/443798/
| antimora wrote:
| Can someone recommend an app for ipad that can read PDFs? I want
| to be able to bookmark using my browser but read it on my ipad.
| Sort of like "Save to pocket" extension.
| buildbot wrote:
| In theory the built in files app will work for this. However, I
| like goodnotes, which has good highlighting snd library
| support. I've used it since grad school for reading papers.
| Tortoise wrote:
| I really like PDF Expert for this. It's free. They have a
| subscription for some editing/advanced features, which I
| haven't tried.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pdf-expert-editor-reader/id743...
| kristjansson wrote:
| Zotero w/ their first-party storage is the best I've found.
| dunham wrote:
| Primarily I've been using Zotero and Notability. They each have
| "save to" on mobile. Zotero has a chrome plugin that requires
| the desktop app to be running. They both optionally support a
| dark mode for reading in the dark.
|
| I like the experience of reading in Muse.app on the iPad. It's
| a nested whiteboarding thing, but also can act as a PDF reader.
| (It'll let you pull out chunks of the PDF and put it on your
| canvas with a link back into your document, if that fits your
| flow.) I often read on my phone, so this is not an option for
| me.
|
| Apple Notes and Muse slow down with a lot of ink. For taking a
| page full of notes I'm using Notability.
|
| I've heard good things about GoodReader, but haven't played
| with it in years.
| hedora wrote:
| Square icon with up arrow sticking out of it -> Save to books.
|
| It seems to work in MacOS and iOS; an iCloud account is
| probably required.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> bookmark using my browser but read it on my ipad_
|
| MacOS and iPad: DevonThink paid app with sync via P2P, WebDAV
| or cloud services.
|
| Optional local mirror/sync of web pages and PDFs, with full
| text search.
| mtone wrote:
| I use Readdle Documents to sync PDF folders with my server PC
| via FTP. Free version supports PDF highlighting & simple
| annotations, basic file management, and automatically syncs
| back everything.
| kennydude wrote:
| I just wish Google Scholar would be a bit more open in terms of
| debugging why a site isn't picked up by the platform
| mixedmath wrote:
| I would also be interested to know how they decide _to_ pick up
| a site. I was very surprised to learn that a technical note
| posted only to my website was picked up somehow. (I am a
| mathematician and so there are other things on my site, but
| it's some custom static site generator thing and I'm still
| astounded).
| jinay wrote:
| Does anyone have a research paper reading tool they're happy
| with? Zotero is what meets most of my needs but I wish I could
| organize the papers faster and I wish the annotation tools were
| better. AI-assisted reading is a plus too.
| mixedmath wrote:
| What does AI assisted reading mean to you?
| jinay wrote:
| Those "chat with a PDF" apps get me halfway there, but I'm
| more imagining something that can explain certain terms in
| the context of the paper, or automatically dive into the
| citations and pull explanations from them too.
| gillesjacobs wrote:
| Mendeley beat Zotero for me with automatic pdf renaming,
| organising and its highlight and note taking tools in the
| reader.
|
| The Elsevier account integration is disgusting though, and I
| hate the idea of using all Elsevier product.
| felipefar wrote:
| What do you like about organization in Mendeley?
| gillesjacobs wrote:
| Ever since the big UX app overhaul there is not much to
| like regarding functionality. They removed the pdf renaming
| and some other major automated file mgmt features from
| mendeley.
|
| Other than that the commenting and note reader UI was
| pretty good. And overall UI/UX felt more modern than
| Zotero, also free (as in beer) cloud backup.
|
| Today I had to do some literature review, and I reinstalled
| Zotero 7beta because I am not happy with the removed
| functionality from Mendeley.
| malshe wrote:
| I use zotfile extension to automatically rename files in
| Zotero
| jdeaton wrote:
| Paperpile is fantastic and you can make a shared folder with
| your lab/team.
| felipefar wrote:
| I was also unhappy with how reference managers handle
| annotations. So I rolled my own app (https://getcahier.com),
| with highlight management integrated in the application. This
| enables me to extract highlights according to topics, organize
| them in notes using document elements (like collapsible notes
| and outlines) and use them to plan more complex arguments. This
| makes it much easier to read actively.
|
| On the paper organization side, I would also like to find out a
| better way of doing it. What helps me a lot, from a more
| methodological perspective, is to categorize books according to
| time period, school of thoughts, or perspective.
| ukuina wrote:
| Cahier looks great! Any plans to add backup/sync?
|
| Also, is the data store encrypted at rest even when the app
| is actively being used?
| felipefar wrote:
| Thanks! I'm considering that. We might first implement P2P
| or external services (dropbox, iCloud) sync, but we'll see.
|
| The data is all local, so there's no need for encryption
| yet. But when we implement sync it'll be end to end
| encrypted.
| oldandtired wrote:
| Doesn't support Linux though or any of the unixes. Looks good
| though.
| felipefar wrote:
| Thank you for your interest! I've received that request
| more than I thought I would. It's high on the priority list
| now, and will arrive soon.
| pks016 wrote:
| I use Zotero with a bunch of useful Addons. Currently, scite is
| best available tool for research papers (at least in my field).
| jinay wrote:
| Scite seems to apply to all fields, any reason why it's
| particularly good in yours?
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| I use a combination of Zotero, Locally Linked PDFs/Folder
| Structure, and SumatraPDFs (Comments etc.):
| folders: - for every literature search, create a
| folder with date and name - e.g.
| 2024-03-21_Quantum_Entanglement - use CTRL-
| SHIFT-DRAG to drop files into Zotero as Links, see
| [#77](https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/77)
| - You _can_ organize in Zotero, but you don't have to. Files
| can be linked to multiple Zotero folders
| (simply copy library entries in Zotero) - sync
| literature folder and zotero database with nextcloud to
| somewhere, for backup zotero: - disable
| sync - set "Base directory" (Preferences > Advanced
| > Files and Folders) to local literature folder -
| set PDF View to "System default" (Preferences > General > "Open
| PDFs using..") - Enable recursive quick search in
| folders: go to Preferences > Advanced > Config Editor, search
| for `recursiveCollections`, double click (set to True)
| - use CTRL-Shift-C to copy bibliography to clipboard
| - Dark Theme: -
| https://github.com/Rosmaninho/Zotero-Dark-Theme
| - Go to `%AppData%\Zotero\Zotero\Profiles\`
| (`XXXXXXXX.default`) - Create `chrome` folder
| - Place the `userChrome.css` - Start Zotero
| - Add-Ons: - zotero-pdfkit
| - https://github.com/sharpevo/zotero-pdfkit/
| - allows to modify/select a "default" PDF attachment to be
| opened - ZoteroDuplicatesMerger
| - https://github.com/frangoud/ZoteroDuplicatesMerger
| - easier merging of duplicates - zotero-folder-
| import -
| https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-folder-import
| - bulk import PDFs from a folder - zotero-tag
| - https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-tag
| - allows to add stars to items (Num Key `1`, `2`, `3` etc.)
| - PDF Tools: - qpdf - removing
| passwords, unlocking PDFs, conversion - install
| in WSL with `apt-get install qpdf` - remove
| password with `qpdf --decrypt --password="" input.pdf
| output.pdf` - `SumatraPDF` -
| _Really_ fast Viewing of PDFs and adding annotations
| (highlight, comment etc.) - Highlight Text:
| `A`, Save to file: `CTRL+SHIFT+S` - it is much
| faster than Adobe Acrobat -
| [pdfplumber](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber)
| - Awesome python package to extract tables from PDFs into data
| pipelines. Use with Jupyter Lab. - [PDF X-Change
| viewer](https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-
| editor), `choco install pdfxchangeviewer` - for
| manual OCR of pages/PDFs
| gerroo wrote:
| Do you know if there's a way to write latex comments in
| Zotero / Mendeley? It's something I've been looking for.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| Did you check the `zotero-better-notes`? [1]
|
| > LaTex math in Zotero note is no longer a dream. The
| `zotero-better-notes` addon now supports this feature!
|
| [1]: https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-better-notes
| hahajk wrote:
| Readwise Reader has a nice pdf reader with highlighting, notes,
| and an AI reader tool. I organize sources using tags. It's very
| new and in active development. Academic research is not it's
| main focus, though, so it probably won't add mindblowing
| academic tools. (like citation support/ backlinks. although it
| does have internet backlinks that tell you want articles link
| to the one you're reading)
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Readwise Reader is a poor PDF reader, unfortunately. Where it
| shines is making readable text documents out of PDFs, so it
| depends on the type that you're reading.
| magical_spell wrote:
| pdf-tools [1] + org-ref [2] in Emacs.
|
| [1] https://github.com/vedang/pdf-tools
|
| [2] https://github.com/jkitchin/org-ref
| Labo333 wrote:
| Nothing quite beats a simple google docs file where I can take
| notes and put links to sci-hub. Very often, legal download
| links expire after some time or they force the browser to
| download the pdf.
|
| I have a google docs for each research project and thus I can
| share them with my collaborators. Each person has their own
| section within the doc so we can also easily share information
| with each other!
| gnicholas wrote:
| I've never seen so many light/dark modes before. There's Device
| Mode, Light Mode, Dark Mode, and Night Mode. AFAICT Device Mode
| follows the browser/device's current setting, Dark Mode makes the
| sidebar dark but doesn't change the PDF, and Night Mode darkens
| both the sidebar and the PDF. I wonder how they decided to have
| so many modes?
| gcr wrote:
| I've seen other apps that have Systen, Light, Dark, and "Very
| Datk" for OLED devices, so it isn't out of the question
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Did you put "Very Datk" in quotes because it was spelled like
| that where you saw it? Or is it just "Very Dark" and it's
| quotes because it doesn't fully imply what you get?
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Automatically applying dark mode to documents tends to have
| poor results, especially when images are involved, but some
| people are masochists and/or can't be bothered to turn on the
| light, so they made a separate setting for them. Although I
| think a toggle would be better instead of dark mode/night mode.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Scholar PDF Reader is available as a Chrome browser extension
|
| So it's a closed ecosystem for now ... pass.
| smburdick wrote:
| For me, reading papers requires deep focus. I have to have it
| physically printed out if I'm going to really read the whole
| thing.
| ildon wrote:
| I suggest you try new devices to read papers. Often the
| perception that paper is a better support is due to a lack of
| more convenient devices. Paper is better than a 15'' screen for
| sure, for many reasons including size and posture while
| reading. But have you tried larger screens (> 27''), large
| tablets (>= A4) or as large as possible E-Ink readers?
| Depending on your preferences, you might find that some of
| these work actually better than paper also for you :-)
| benrapscallion wrote:
| Remarkable 2 tablet is very good for reading papers.
| ykonstant wrote:
| There is no way I can perceive reading on an expensive device
| as more comfortable than paper. Paper is fairly cheap,
| lightweight and resilient; I can carry it around, fold it,
| toss it aside, sit on it by accident while thinking, annotate
| it with scribbles, and pour coffee on it with aplomb and
| finesse. I can flip it, half-tear it in anger, drool on it
| when I reach my brain capacity. I can take it hiking with me
| without fear of breaking or losing it. In other words, paper
| is a tool that gets out of my way.
|
| I did try all the devices you listed above, even had my
| department pay serious money, and ended up barely using them
| for all those reasons. I am a mathematician, I am clumsy and
| I want to focus on my problem-solving; I want to think, and
| babysitting devices and tools is not what I want to spend my
| brainspace on.
| serial_dev wrote:
| "But did you think about the environment? Why don't you by
| a new device every 2 years with Lithium battery and full of
| non recyclable plastic in it"
|
| ... is what I get told all the time.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| With the typical reading volume of an academic and the
| amount of plastic in my toner cartridges, I'm not sure
| paper comes out ahead in that comparison.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| A high yield toner cartridge can print between 3000 and
| 8000 pages of text [1]. Average number of pages in a
| scientific manuscript is 10 [2]. This means that it would
| take 300 to 800 printed scientific papers to deplete one
| cartridge. I would have to assume that a single toner
| cart is not the same amount of waste as a reading device
| just due to the recyclability of toner carts, but it is
| up to you how to count them. If I was going to pull a
| number out of my ass, I would say 10 carts would be equal
| to one reading device with battery. Let's go low-end and
| pick 300 papers, which means you would need to print 3000
| full scientific manuscripts to equal the waste of one
| reading device. How many do you read in two years?
|
| [1] https://www.brother-usa.com/supplies/ink-and-
| toner#sort=rele...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987331/
| temporarara wrote:
| In my experience those people don't even talk about ink,
| it's all about paper. They must think that you get just a
| few sheets of paper for a single tree or something like
| that, when in reality you get like 10 000 sheets of paper
| for one averagish tree. And those trees are not rare or
| anything like that, and the process of making paper is
| nowhere near as bad as electronics industry. Using paper
| is as ecological as it gets.
| smburdick wrote:
| I'm typing this comment on an iPad ;-) Which I love using for
| marking up papers and other documents for quick feedback. But
| doing research is another story.
| pyromaker wrote:
| I use a tool called Scholars
|
| https://www.scholars.io
|
| Let you import and read PDF directly, annotate, comment and share
| with people.
| eviks wrote:
| > You can focus on absorbing the scholarship - the format is
| simple and clean.
|
| Unless you need to scroll left and right on your phone instead of
| absorbing
| nothrowaways wrote:
| "..have long loved PDFs" not.
| modeless wrote:
| Hmm, nice to have direct links to references. But the PDF
| rendering itself seems not as good as the native renderer.
| lordswork wrote:
| Just tried it and didn't notice any significant differences in
| PDF rendering myself. Do you have any concrete examples?
| nprateem wrote:
| Ha ha lol. Is that really the best they can think of in an age of
| AI? Instead of turning PDFs into web pages how about some
| actually useful tools:
|
| * Summarisation
|
| * Succinctly placing the research in context of the broader field
|
| * Highlighting limitations or flaws in research methods, etc.
|
| * An outline view to summarise each paragraph/section and then
| drill down into the ones you actually want to read in more detail
|
| * Rephrasing into plain English. A lot of academics enjoy
| sounding clever and usling long words so it'd be nice to be able
| to switch off "ego mode" and just read stuff in plain English
| instead of having to wade through their word-soup.
|
| With more effort maybe Google could create a PDF reader that is
| actually innovative.
| vasco wrote:
| The friends I have in academia say that their PhD professors
| tell them to use "ego mode" or papers won't pass review and be
| accepted. I'm with you though. And it's not about specific
| jargon of a field, it's just wankery. Most lawyers do the same
| thing and you need to get extremely good ones to write good
| contracts in clear language.
|
| "Sounding smarter through obscurity"
| nprateem wrote:
| Yeah I'm sure that's true. It'd be nice to be able to opt out
| though while you're in the first pass research phase.
| benrapscallion wrote:
| Can someone recommend lightweight alternatives to Paperpile or
| EndNote that have two essential features: 1. Rename a PDF file to
| a consistent (Author Year Journal) format. 2. Online sync (Mac,
| iOS and web access) - including via say iCloud or Dropbox.
|
| Maybe this just needs a script? I just paid $100 for EndNote 21
| yesterday and don't think these needs justify that cost.
| zoizoi wrote:
| Maybe try Zotero[1]. There are many addons which can do what
| you need.
|
| [1]https://www.zotero.org/
| jwr wrote:
| Already counting the days until this inevitably gets killed. I've
| been burned too many times to rely on Google for anything, except
| tracking me and pushing ads, which they indeed do better every
| day.
| occamrazor wrote:
| Scholar is heavily used internally, it's unlikely to be
| discontinued even if it has never brought any money to Google.
| kadoban wrote:
| This is about a PDF reader though, not Google Scholar itself.
| biofox wrote:
| Google Reader and RSS feeds were also heavily used internally
| :(
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| What replaced it - Google Wave ???.
| cityhall wrote:
| I wonder if their real intent is to gather training data on
| which parts of papers are considered important by readers, and
| which topics are related to each other.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Even so, isn't something better than nothing?
| fattybob wrote:
| Totally agree, seems all Google stuff has a life expectancy
| countdown
| moritz64 wrote:
| google has worked hard to earn this reputation. i don't want to
| rely on any part of the google ecosystem anymore.
| chombier wrote:
| So I guess this a way for Google to gather (more/fine-grain) data
| on paper skimming/research interest?
| woctordho wrote:
| When can we have a PDF reader where we can hover over a symbol
| and see its definition?
| lordswork wrote:
| What kind of symbol?
| RandomWorker wrote:
| Alt+<- brings you back to where you were after clicking on a
| reference. You can skip around pretty easily to see the
| referenced object and this overlay does seem kinda interesting
| it's not something crucial.
| notsahil wrote:
| Zotero is the one I use but found this one useful too:
| https://synthical.com/
| jccalhoun wrote:
| It is really nice to see google scholar get some attention. It is
| essential for a lot of academics and it would be horrible if
| google "sunset"ed it.
| orsenthil wrote:
| I use an extension called histre, https://histre.com/ for
| annotation and keeping up with _notes_ / _thoughts_ inline. I
| found that using tools like Fermat's Library, which provides side
| bar annotation, histre for inline highlight, annotation and
| multi-references, and ChatGPT to understand complex terms, all
| helped with understand recent papers. Even a medical journal
| paper,
| https://senthil.learntosolveit.com/posts/2023/10/21/medical-...
| for me, in one instance.
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