AIdea for Zotero

AIdea for Zotero is an AI assistant for researchers who want to ask questions about papers and translate reading material inside Zotero. Its side panel works in the library view and the PDF or EPUB reader.

• Paper questions: Ask for summaries or explanations using selected passages as context, with clickable PDF page or EPUB chapter citations when reliable locations are available.
• Passage translation: Translate selected PDF or EPUB text and save the result as a Zotero note or highlight annotation.
• Full-paper translation: Export translated PDFs as bilingual documents with side-by-side or top-bottom layouts, or as single-language PDFs.
• Images and notes: Attach figures, charts and screenshots to conversations, and save answers as Zotero notes with Markdown and LaTeX math.
• Conversation continuity: Resume locally stored chats, export and import conversations with attachments, and keep memory separate for each Zotero library.

The plugin supports local models through Ollama, LM Studio and vLLM, where your data stays on your machine. It also accepts OpenAI-compatible APIs, including DeepSeek and OpenRouter. Existing ChatGPT, Gemini or GitHub Copilot subscriptions provide cloud access through OAuth without an API key. Chat history and memory stay in Zotero's local database.

AIdea is free and open source under AGPL-3.0 and requires Zotero 7 or later. OpenAI and Gemini connections require Node.js. Full-document translation requires a Python environment running pdf2zh_next; setting up that environment needs an internet connection.