Distillate — From Zotero through reMarkable to structured notes

How it works

1 Save a paper to Zotero

Use the Zotero browser connector or mobile app. Distillate automatically picks up new papers from your library.

2 PDF syncs to your reMarkable

Distillate uploads the PDF to your tablet. Optionally removes it from Zotero to save storage (300 MB free tier).

3 Read and highlight on your tablet

Highlight the passages that matter to you. When you're done, just move the document to the Read folder and Distillate does the rest.

4 Distillate extracts your highlights

Highlighted text is pulled from the reMarkable, cleaned up, and saved as a structured markdown note grouped by page.

5 Notes and PDFs are archived locally

Your highlights, reading log, and PDFs are saved to an Obsidian vault or a plain folder on your computer.

Scheduling launchd & cron Set it and forget it. Runs automatically on macOS or Linux.

Obsidian integration Obsidian vault Searchable database, reading stats, deep links from Zotero

AI summaries Anthropic API One-liner, key learnings, and a paragraph summary for each paper you read

Paper suggestions Anthropic API Pick what to read next from your queue, based on your reading history

Email digest Free Resend account Daily paper suggestions and weekly reading logs, delivered to your inbox

Citation data Semantic Scholar See how influential each paper is with citation counts from Semantic Scholar

distillateSync Zotero -> reMarkable -> notes (default)

distillate --importImport existing papers from Zotero

distillate --statusShow queue health and reading stats

distillate --suggestGet paper suggestions for your queue

distillate --digestShow your reading digest

distillate --scheduleSet up or manage automatic syncing

distillate --initRun the setup wizard

Component		Notes
Zotero account	Free	Manages your paper library
reMarkable tablet	Required	Where you read and highlight (uses rmapi)
Obsidian or output folder	Optional	Where notes are saved locally
Anthropic API key	Optional	For AI summaries and suggestions
Resend account	Optional	For weekly digest emails

Zotero reMarkable Obsidian Semantic Scholar Anthropic Resend