zotero-pdf2zh-pro

Local Python server for the Zotero zotero-pdf2zh-pro plugin.

uv tool install --python 3.13 zotero-pdf2zh-pro
zotero-pdf2zh-pro

The default service URL is http://127.0.0.1:8890.

The server verifies HTTPS using the operating system's trusted certificates, including trusted proxy CAs on macOS and Windows. Certificate and hostname verification remain enabled. For Docker, install any required private CA in the container's trust store; the host's trust store is not inherited.

Reading memory and short text (since v1.8.0)

POST /translation-lookup accepts documentFingerprint (the original PDF SHA-256), text, optional one-based page, side (source by default, or translation), and optional targetLang. It returns matched: false, or matched: true with matchType (exact / contained), source, translation, page, paragraphId, targetLang, and fromTranslationMemory: true. A contained match returns the whole paragraph, not word alignment. The route never constructs or calls a provider.

translation-memory.sqlite3 lives directly in the configured data directory. Completed PDF outputs sync succeeded, nonempty, quality-approved-or-unrejected paragraphs from their task checkpoint. Corrected text replaces earlier text. Existing completed/incomplete task checkpoints are also read at startup; deleting a task does not remove memory. Legacy placeholders that cannot be restored are replaced with ⟦原排版内容⟧ and flagged with formattingIncomplete: true; their prose still matches without a provider call. The recovery database remains exclusively the task retry checkpoint.

POST /translate-text accepts text, optional context (up to 12,000 characters), documentFingerprint, one-based page, source, target, mode (lookup, translate, explain), service, llm_api, and glossaryEntries. The first two modes check memory and glossary before cached results or a provider. Explicit explain requests may use a provider even on a memory hit; the real stored paragraph pair supplies the context. No PDF task, font preparation or subprocess is created.

Optional selectionProvider is profile (legacy default) or bing; optional memoryPolicy is paragraph (legacy default) or exact. With exact, contained memory does not stop translation; clients can retain it separately as folded reference. The Reader explicitly sends both fields.

Bing requires no model configuration or key, and sends only selected text and language pair to https://www.bing.com/ttranslatev3 after obtaining session parameters from https://www.bing.com/translator. It splits losslessly at UTF-8 boundaries up to 1,000 bytes (within the web translator’s 1,000-character limit), prefers sentence/whitespace boundaries, and starts at most one request per second across workers. The whole translation has a 45-second deadline. Quota errors (provider_quota, 429), invalid/empty responses and timeouts are not cached; partial translations never count as success. There is no automatic fallback to the model. Free-service cache keys contain only selected text, language and provider; no paper context or credentials are sent.

The profile text provider supports existing presets resolving to OpenAISettings, including Chat Completions and Responses. A fixed protocol needs no health-check request; auto negotiates only when a model request is actually needed. Responses contain translation or explanation, provider, model when available, and cached. Errors have a fixed code: empty_text, invalid_request, invalid_config, unsupported_selection_provider, provider_timeout (504), provider_error / empty_output (502), or selection_busy (429). Requests wait at most 45 seconds; an already-running HTTP operation may finish later, with at most two worker requests active. Duplicate in-flight requests share work. A 128-entry, one-hour memory cache fronts selection-cache.sqlite3 in the server data directory. Persistent translation/context results are capped at 20,000 least-recently-used entries; personal word entries never expire. Only result data, digests and timestamps are stored, not credentials or raw provider configuration. Model translation keys include context and output-affecting options; context/explanation keys additionally include the document fingerprint.

mode: dictionary returns entry (headword, senses, optional usage, aiGenerated), a plain-text translation, model provenance, createdAt, formatVersion and saved. It requires a short selection (at most 3 words / 100 characters). Its key preserves case and includes only the normalized selection, language pair and schema/prompt version, allowing reuse across papers and models. mode: context requires nonempty document fingerprint and surrounding context different from the selection; it bypasses document memory and uses the current model. Both modes require selectionProvider: profile.

allowGenerate: false performs a read-only cache lookup, returning status: miss without invoking any provider. cachePolicy: refresh bypasses saved results, memory and glossary; successful results replace the corresponding cache entry, failures preserve the prior entry. Repeated concurrent refreshes share work, and older results cannot overwrite newer refreshes or repopulate cleared caches. saved: false indicates the result is usable but could not be persisted.

POST /selection-capabilities returns selectionLearning: true; the same capability is advertised by /health. New clients verify it before using these fields. POST /selection-cache/clear clears translation/context caches but preserves personal dictionary entries and document memory. Existing request modes remain supported. Empty/invalid AI dictionary output is rejected as invalid_output; missing usable context is context_unavailable.

Reader usage and manual verification: user guide.

Model discovery

POST /list-models accepts apiUrl, optional apiKey, and optional apiProtocol (auto, chat_completions, or responses). It strips a recognized translation endpoint suffix and requests <base>/models, preserving custom paths and never adding /v1. A successful response is {"status":"ok","models":["model-id"]}; an empty list is valid.

Discovery uses a 15-second timeout and does not follow redirects, persist keys, or echo upstream response bodies in errors. Errors return status and message with HTTP 400 for invalid input, 502 for provider failures, or 504 for timeout. Clients should allow manual model entry on failure. /health advertises supportsModelDiscovery: true; existing translation endpoints are unchanged.

Translation protocols and request options

The optional llm_api.apiProtocol field accepts auto, chat_completions, or responses; llm_api.requestOptions accepts a JSON object of extra request parameters. /health advertises supportedApiProtocols, and /validate-config returns resolvedProtocol. Older servers support the Chat Completions fallback; Responses and extra request options require a compatible server update.

New task metrics omit cost. Token and upstream cache values may be null, with availability indicating unavailable, partial, or complete. Legacy cost fields are ignored when reading historical records.

Translation completeness and repair

Task details and SSE events expose translationSummary, failedParagraphs, and canRepair. The incomplete status indicates that paragraphs requiring translation are still unresolved. A terminal task with an existing PDF exposes canDownloadResult: true; its PDF can be downloaded and is automatically imported into Zotero with an incomplete label. Repair creates a new attachment and preserves previous versions and annotations. Older servers without this field retain the completed-only import behavior. Import retries do not trigger translation requests.

POST /tasks/{taskId}/repair accepts incomplete, completed, and cancelled tasks and returns the snapshot for the new attempt. Active tasks return HTTP 409. Repair preserves validated translations and requests the remaining paragraphs, using QPS 2 and concurrency 4 by default. Pure URL footnotes are preserved without translation; ordinary body text containing a URL still requires translation.

Paragraph checkpoints are stored in paragraph-recovery.sqlite3 inside the task directory, allowing repair after a server restart. Deleting a task also removes its checkpoints. JSON structure, paragraph IDs, nonempty translations, and placeholders are validated before translations are cached.

Runtime and data paths

Run zotero-pdf2zh-pro --help for supported options: --host, --port, --log-level, --data-dir, and --log-file. The default listener is 127.0.0.1:8890. /health reports the effective workspace.path, writability, free space, versions, and task counts. Inspect that path before backing up data or uninstalling; its location depends on the installation method.

The corresponding environment variables are PDF2ZH_HOST, PDF2ZH_PORT, PDF2ZH_LOG_LEVEL, PDF2ZH_DATA_DIR, and PDF2ZH_LOG_FILE. By default, task data is stored in translates alongside the installed server module. The optional log file rotates at 10 MiB with three backups.

For the Windows and macOS installation walkthrough, see the main tutorial.

On-demand glossary packs

The server manages optional English-to-Simplified-Chinese glossary packs under <effective-data-dir>/glossaries/. Installation packages contain catalog metadata only. Downloads and update checks are explicit actions from Zotero preferences; installed packs work offline. Each translation task stores the resolved terms and source versions, so retries and repairs survive pack updates or removal.

/health advertises capabilities.glossaryPacks. GET /glossaries is local-only; POST /glossaries/check-updates refreshes the catalog. Download, cancel and remove operations use /glossaries/<id>/download, /glossaries/<id>/cancel, and DELETE /glossaries/<id>. Translation requests may include glossaryPacks with id, version, and sha256 alongside custom glossaryEntries.

See glossary downloads for storage, API and merge rules, and glossary sources for attribution.

Task diagnostics and bounded cancellation

/health.capabilities advertises diagnosticsExport, boundedCancellation, and detailedTaskProgress. GET /diagnostics and GET /tasks/{taskId}/diagnostics return versioned, size-bounded, allowlisted JSON; they never export request payloads, paper content, keys or raw historical logs. Structured rotating logs live under <data-dir>/diagnostics/. The plugin combines this snapshot with its own records into a local ZIP.

Each attempt runs in a spawn process, contained by a POSIX process group or Windows Job Object. Cancellation escalates at 10/12 seconds and reports cleanup failure at 15 seconds rather than waiting indefinitely. A failed cleanup pauses the queue. Stalls alone only trigger diagnostics, never automatic cancellation. See the owning specification for fields, retention, recovery and acceptance.