Zotero PDF Translate

This is an add-on for Zotero 6's built-in PDF reader.
Translate PDFs, annotations, notes, and item titles automatically.

Quick Start Guide

Install

Download the latest release (.xpi file) from the Releases Page
Note If you're using Firefox as your browser, right-click the .xpi and select "Save As.."
In Zotero click Tools in the top menu bar and then click Addons
Go to the Extensions page and then click the gear icon in the top right.
Select Install Add-on from file.
Browse to where you downloaded the .xpi file and select it.
Restart Zotero, by clicking restart now in the extensions list where the Zotero PDF Translate plugin is now listed.

Usage

Once you have the plugin installed simply, open any PDF in your collections.

Select some text, the translations are shown on the popup and the right sidebar(v0.2.0); Hold Alt/Option to concat selections.
Highlight some text, the translations are added to the annotation comment(v0.3.0); Modify & retranslate the annotation text in the sidebar and click the Update Annotation to modify the annotation text and translation(v0.6.6);
Add selected text along with translation to note(v0.4.0); Only works when a note editor is active.
Translate item titles with right-click menu or shortcut Ctrl+T(v0.6.0).
Translate item abstract with right-click menu(v0.8.0). Thanks @iShareStuff
Standalone translation window available(v0.7.0). View & compare translations from multiply engines in one window!
Dictionary for single word translation(v0.7.1). Only for en2zh and en2en now

Q&A

Q I want to translate manually.
A Go to Edit->Preferences->PDF Translate->General, uncheck the Automatic Translation. Click the translate button on the popup or sidebar to translate.

Q I want a translate shortcut.
A Press shortcut Ctrl+T after you selected some text. If you are in the collection view, the titles' translation will show/hide.

Q I want to concat different seletions and translate them together.
A Press Alt/Option when selecting text in PDF.

Q Not the language I want.
A The default target language is the same as your Zotero language. Go to Edit->Preferences->PDF Translate->General and change the language settings.

Q Translation not correct or report an error.
A See Language Settings and #6. Make sure you use the right secret.

Q I want to change the font size.
A Go to Edit->Preferences->PDF Translate->Advanced and set the font size.

Settings

General-Functions

Enable Translation, default true
Automatic Translation, default true
Enable Dictionary: single word will be translated using dictionary-engine instead of translate engine, default true
Enable Popup: Show results in a right-click popup or only in the sidebar, default true
Automatic Annotation Translation: Save annotation's translation as comment, default true
Enable Update and Edit Last Annotation Translation, default true
Show 'Add to Note' in Popup: default true

Unvisible if no active note editor opened.
- Replace Source Text: Use translation to replace the source text when adding to note, default false

General-Translate Engine

The default engine is Google Translate. Currently, we support:

Translate Engine	Require Secret	Supported Languages
Google Translate	No	100+
Google Translate(API)	No	Use `translate.googleapis.com`
CNKI	No	https://dict.cnki.net
Youdao Translate	No	100+?
Youdao Zhiyun	Yes	100+
Niu Translate(Trial)	No	100+ UNSTABLE
Niu Translate	Yes	100+
Microsoft Translate	Yes(free 2M)	200+
LingoCloud(Caiyun) Translate	Yes	zh, en, ja, es, fr, ru
DeepL Translate	Yes(free 500k)	100+
Baidu Translate	Yes(free-QPS1/free-2M)	200+
Baidu Field	Yes(free-QPS1/free-2M)	en-zh
Tencent Translate	Yes(QPS5, free-5M)	15

If the engine you want is not yet supported, please post an issue.

General-Language Settings

You can change the source and target language here. For some Translate Engines, the secret is required. They are listed below:

Microsoft Translate
Apply here. Copy your secret and paste it into the settings.
The secret format is MY_SECRET.

See this issue for detailed steps to set up the Microsoft Translate.

DeepL Translate
Apply here.

Youdao Zhiyun Translate 有道智云
Apply here.
The secret format is MY_APPID#MY_SECRET#MY_VOCABID(optional).

About VOCABID
登录控制台，选择文本翻译服务，点击右侧的术语表，选择新建，填写表名称和语言方向，添加需要的术语表，然后获取对应词表 id 即可。

Official Document

Niu Translate
Apply here.
The secret format is MY_APIKEY#dictNo(optional)#memoryNo(optional).

Chinese Document

Baidu Translate
Apply here.
The secret format is MY_APPID#MY_KEY#ACTION(optional, see https://api.fanyi.baidu.com/doc/21, default 0)(split with '#').

Baidu Field Translate 百度垂直领域翻译
Apply here.
The secret format is MY_APPID#MY_KEY#DOMAIN_CODE(split with '#').

Domain Code	领域	语言方向
electronics	电子科技领域	中文-->英语
finance	金融财经领域	中文-->英语
finance	金融财经领域	英语-->中文
mechanics	水利机械领域	中文-->英语
medicine	生物医药领域	中文-->英语
medicine	生物医药领域	英语-->中文
novel	网络文学领域	中文-->英语

Chinese Document

Tencent Translate
Apply here.
The secret format is secretId#SecretKey#Region(optional, default ap-shanghai)#ProjectId(optional, default 0)(split with '#').

Chinese Document

OpenL Translate
Apply here.
The secret format is service1,service2,...#apikey(split with '#'; split service codes with ',').

Supported service codes are: deepl,youdao,tencent,aliyun,baidu,caiyun,wechat,sogou,azure,ibm,aws,google, See Service Code

Chinese Document

Advanced-UI

Font Size: The font size of result text, default 12
Line Height: The line height of result text, default 1.5
SideBar: Show xxx: Show or hide sidebar elements, default true
SideBar: Reverse Raw/Result: Reverse the order of Raw/Result in the sidebar if true, default false
Popup: Remember Size: Remember size of popup if true, else automatically adjust the size, default false

Advanced-Others

Disable Automatic Translation when File Language is(split with ','): If you want to disable automatic translation in zh and ja files, set zh,ja.

Development & Contributing

This section is for developers.

This addon is built based on the Zotero Addon Template.

Setup

This repo can be used as a Zotero 6.x addon template. To start with, clone this repo and install npm dependencies:

git clone git@github.com:windingwind/zotero-pdf-translate.git
cd zotero-pdf-translate
npm i

Change the settings in package.json. Modify addonRef and addonID to avoid confliction.

Directory Structure

This section shows the directory structure of a template.

All .js/.ts code files are in ./src;
Addon config files: ./addon/chrome.manifest, ./addon/install.rdf;
UI files: ./addon/chrome/content/*.xul. The overlay.xul also defines the main entrance;
Locale files: ./addon/chrome/locale/*.dtd;
Resource files: ./addon/chrome/skin/default/__addonRef__/*.dtd;

│  .gitignore
│  .release-it.json # release-it conf
|  jsconfig.json    # https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/jsconfig#
│  build.js         # esbuild
│  LICENSE
│  package.json     # npm conf
│  README.md        # readme
│  update.rdf       # addon update
│
├─.github           # github conf
│
├─addon             # addon dir
│  │  chrome.manifest  #addon conf
│  │  install.rdf   # addon install conf
│  │
│  └─chrome
│      ├─content    # UI
│      │  │  overlay.xul
│      │  │  preferences.xul
│      │  │  standalone.xul
│      │  │
│      │  └─scripts
│      ├─locale     # locale
│      │  ├─en-US
│      │  │      overlay.dtd
│      │  │
│      │  └─zh-CN
│      │         overlay.dtd
│      │
│      └─skin       # style
│          └─default
│              └─zoteropdftranslate
│                      favicon.png
│                      favicon@0.5x.png
│
├─builds            # build dir
│  └─zotero-pdf-translate.xpi
│
├─imgs              # readme images
│
└─src               # source code
    │  index.ts     # main entry
    │  base.ts      # base class
    │  PDFTranslate.ts  # main class
    │  events.ts    # events class
    │  reader.ts    # reader class
    │  translate.ts # translate class
    │  view.ts      # UI class
    │  prefs.ts     # preferences class
    │
    ├─translate     # translate engines
    │       baidu.ts
    │       caiyun.ts
    │       config.ts
    │       deepl.ts
    │       google.ts
    │       microsoft.ts
    │       niutrans.ts
    │       tencent.ts
    │       youdao.ts
    |
    └─dict          # dictionary engines
            youdaodict.ts

Build

# A release-it command: version increase, npm run build, git push, and GitHub release
# You need to set the environment variable GITHUB_TOKEN https://github.com/settings/tokens
# release-it: https://github.com/release-it/release-it
npm run release

Alternatively, build it directly using build.js: npm run build

Build Steps

Clean ./builds
Copy ./addon to ./builds
Esbuild to ./builds/addon/chrome/content/scripts
Replace __buildVersion__ and __buildTime__ in ./builds/addon
Zip the ./builds/addon to ./builds/*.xpi

Debug

Copy zotero command line config file. Modify the commands.

cp zotero-cmd-default.json zotero-cmd.json

Setup addon development environment following this link.
Build addon and restart Zotero with this npm command.

npm run restart

You can also debug code in these ways:

Test code segments in Tools->Developer->Run Javascript;
Debug output with Zotero.debug(). Find the outputs in Help->Debug Output Logging->View Output;
UI debug. Zotero is built on the Firefox XUL framework. Debug XUL UI with software like XUL Explorer.

XUL Documents:
https://www.xul.fr/tutorial/
http://www.xulplanet.com/

Contributing

Search for a Zotero API
Zotero docs are outdated or incomplete. Searching the source code of Zotero is unavoidable.
Clone https://github.com/zotero/zotero and search the keyword globally. You can search the UI text in .xul/.dtd files, and then search the keys of the text value in .js/.xul files.

Persistence settings
Zotero Prefs can persistence a value. See src/prefs.ts and addon/chrome/content/preferences.xul for detailed usage in js/xul.

Add a translate/dict engine

Add a .ts file under src/${translate or dict} with the same format with other engines;
Update the sources, sourcesName, and defaultSecret in src/config.ts;
Update the zotero-prefpane-__addonRef__-settings-${translate or dict}-source menulist in addon/chrome/content/preferences.xul;
Update the ui entry of the translate/dict engine in addon/chrome/locale/${en-US or zh-CN}/overlay.dtd.
Import and add you engine or dict to the class TransEngine and constructor of src/translate.ts
Build and test.

Disclaimer

Use this code under AGPL. No warranties are provided. Keep the laws of your locality in mind!

Part of the code of this repo refers to other open-source projects within the allowed scope.

zotero-scihub
zotero-tag
zotero-better-bibtex(d.ts)

My Other Zotero Addons

zotero-better-notes: Everything about note management. All in Zotero.
zotero-pdf-preview: PDF preview for Zotero
zotero-tag: Automatically tag items/Batch tagging

Sponsor Me

I'm windingwind, an active Zotero(https://www.zotero.org) plugin developer. Devoting to making reading papers easier.

Sponsor me to buy a cup of coffee. I spend more than 24 hours every week coding, debugging, and replying to issues in my plugin repositories. The plugins are open-source and totally free.

If you sponsor more than $10 a month, you can list your name/logo here and have priority for feature requests/bug fixes!

Zotero PDF Translate

Quick Start Guide

Install

Usage

Q&A

Settings

General-Functions

General-Translate Engine

General-Language Settings

Advanced-UI

Advanced-Others

Development & Contributing

Setup

Directory Structure

Build

Build Steps

Debug

Contributing

Disclaimer

My Other Zotero Addons

Sponsor Me

About

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