This will be a two part article, with this first part focusing on the set up and the second will focus on my reading workflow as an online Masters student who has a lot of reading to do.

Logseq and Zotero

Logseq is a free and open-source note-taking app. If you like bullet points and connecting your thoughts, Logseq is one to try thanks to its outliner format and graph database. I use it every day thanks to some standout features which will be showcased in part 2 of this article:

• block references

• block/page embeds

• PDF reader

Zotero is a reference and citation manager and (for me) academic file storage. It has browser extensions allowing you to save metadata about the source you are referencing, to save you from having to find it all. You can also read PDFs and take notes in Zotero, but this experience comes nowhere close to Logseq, so I just use it for its basic functions. It could really do with some UI/UX enhancements, but it does the job I have given it, so I can’t complain too much.

Aims of the System

I’m not (yet…) very good at reading International Relations theory and unfortunately with working full time, I don’t have a lot of time to spend on my reading. I need efficient systems with the lowest amount of friction my skills and capabilities can give me. For me, this looks like a simple set up, where my notes, thoughts and questions are in one place to avoid disrupting the reading workflow.

Referencing is also not fun. To be clear, everyone should be credited for their work, but the referencing conventions are complex, so I will take any help I can get with it. Enter Zotero. It does the hard referencing work, giving me the brain space to read and think about the content.

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Setting up the Zotero Integration

For the basic set up, I simply followed the guide section of this article. Super simple to understand and it didn’t take long at all.

Then I made these tiny and probably unnecessary changes

• Changed ‘Attachments’ to ‘Assets’- to keep in line with Logseq terminology

• Left ‘Notes under block of’ empty — I don’t write notes in Zotero (hence Logseq!) so there’s nothing to import

• Changed page name prefix as ‘Zot_’ not “@”- I didn’t want these pages at the start of my files, so put them at the end.

• Added extra tags of ‘zotero’ and ‘literature’ — this just tells me I need to work on the reading and I can use this in queries.

• I did NOT add all Zotero items- when I started, I didn’t have many items but at least this way I know I am only adding what I need.

Getting Content into Logseq

Once the Zotero-Logseq connection is set up, you just need to save what you need to Zotero (with the connector, DOI, or manually), and then you can pull it into Logseq. Save PDFs to Zotero so they can be easily imported in Logseq.

To import to Logseq, you enter ‘/Zotero’ which opens a text box in which you can type the title of the reading, or a partial one, and it will search your database for matches. If there is an abstract saved, that will appear in the text box, likewise with the type of writing (e.g. journal article vs book). You choose the source you want, and it is made into a page, named according to what is in Zotero plus the prefix you assigned in the settings, so all of mine are Zot_xxx.

When you open this page you see all the metadata, the abstract if it’s there, and a link to the asset, the PDF, if you or Zotero saved one. There’s also a cool ‘open’ button.

Clearly, half of the above only works if you have a PDF. You should endeavour to find the source in PDF format though, because that functionality in Logseq is frankly magical. But, even when you can’t get a PDF, I’d still argue that having the reference information and having ability to take notes in a Logseq page still makes this integration more than worth using.

PDF Magic?

When you press ‘open’ the PDF appears on the left hand side of the page with the below toolbar.

You can change the viewer colour, highlight areas and quotes, zoom in and out, get an outline for most PDFs and search the whole PDF which is incredible.

The last icon before the page numbers is how you get to the highlights page. This is where the magic starts as any highlights you make on the PDF viewer automatically copy over to the notes side, with a page reference bookmark!

This is great for quickly hopping around the PDF, you don’t even have to think about finding the page number or scrolling to the right place.

As expected, the highlights naturally paste into a bullet point meaning you can really dig into what you’re reading in a nested bullet point, but more on that in part 2.

One thing about the PDF Viewer and the highlights page though is there aren’t automatic links between the highlights page and the Zotero page, presumably because the highlights belong to the asset, not the Zotero page. This means getting back to the Zotero page takes a bit of thinking. For me though, this isn’t a barrier to use. But I’ve just realised that the easiest solution would simply be linking the Zotero file under the metadata. Do that once and it saves time later…

Why do it this way?

With this system, everything you need to get working and writing comes together after only about 40 seconds of work (save source to Zotero, ‘/zotero’, search for and find source, press enter). This has to be quicker, cheaper and more time efficient than every other option- no printing, buying highlighters, no manual search for a note you wrote somewhere in the margin.

It is worth saying that I do think you have to like bullet points and that kind of natural hierarchy that comes with indenting subsequent bullet points to get the most out of it. But the way you can resurface, connect and explore information at a block (or bullet point) level is unlike anything I’ve ever tried.

I’ve done paper print outs, physical highlighting and annotating. I’ve done PDF imports to Goodnotes. I’ve typed up quotes I’ve read to analyse in a table format and in Notion. The Logseq-Zotero integration is just several times better than all of these.

Have you tried the integration?