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Paper Manager

by Elliot Dong
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Description

turns an Obsidian vault into a local library for importing, reading, annotating, and analyzing academic papers.

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Latest Version

0.1.3
9 days ago

Changelog

Paper Manager 0.1.3

  • Show the remaining credit balance for the configured Paper Manager billing key.
  • Add automatic balance checks and a manual refresh action in plugin settings.
  • Remove React 19 dynamic script element creation paths from the production bundle for Obsidian Community review compliance.
  • Pin the validated EmbedPDF dependency set for reproducible releases.
See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

Paper Manager

Paper Manager turns an Obsidian vault into a local library for importing, reading, annotating, and analyzing academic papers.

Your papers and annotations stay as ordinary files in your vault. The core library works without an account, payment, or internet connection. Optional AI actions are paid and send the selected paper to an external processing service; see Paid AI features and Privacy and data handling before using them.

Features

  • Import one or more PDFs into stable, plugin-managed paper folders.
  • Detect duplicate imports by the PDF's SHA-256 hash.
  • Search by title and filter by reading status, author, keyword, or year.
  • Edit a paper's title, authors, keywords, and reading status from the library.
  • Read, highlight, draw, and add comments in a dedicated PDF workspace.
  • Store editable annotations separately and generate an annotated.pdf copy.
  • Analyze a single paper with AI and save structured metadata and an overview to its index note.
  • Ask an AI assistant about a paper by starting a PDF comment with @pp.
  • Refresh the library automatically when files in its configured folder change.

Multi-paper synthesis, bulk selection, and presentation generation are not part of the current release.

Requirements

  • Obsidian 1.8.7 or later.
  • A billing key and internet connection only if you use the optional AI features.

PDFs over 30 pages can be imported, organized, read, and annotated locally, but Analyze, Reanalyze, and @pp will reject them before billing or upload.

Installation

From Obsidian Community Plugins

  1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
  2. Turn off Restricted mode if Obsidian asks you to do so.
  3. Select Browse, search for Paper Manager, and select Install.
  4. Select Enable after installation.

Manual installation

Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest GitHub release, then place them in:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/paper-manager/

Reload Obsidian and enable Paper Manager under Community plugins.

Getting started

  1. Open Settings → Paper Manager and choose the vault-relative paper library folder. The default is Papers.
  2. Open the library from the ribbon icon or run Paper Manager: Open paper library from the command palette.
  3. Select Import PDF and choose one or more PDF files.
  4. Select a paper title to open its index note. Open its managed PDF and choose Edit in Paper Manager to annotate it.
  5. Optionally add a billing key in settings, then select Analyze in the library or write @pp your question in a PDF comment.

Only PDFs imported and verified as Paper Manager papers show the Edit in Paper Manager entry point. Moving an arbitrary PDF into the library folder does not make it a managed paper.

Vault data

Each imported paper is stored in a UUID-named folder under the configured library folder:

Papers/
  <paper-id>/
    index.md
    source.pdf
    annotated.pdf
    annotations.json
  • index.md contains the paper's metadata, AI-generated overview, and your notes. The paper_manager: true property identifies a managed paper.
  • source.pdf is the immutable imported PDF used for reading and AI requests.
  • annotations.json is the editable annotation source of truth.
  • annotated.pdf is a generated PDF with saved annotations applied.

Paper Manager reads and writes only its configured folder inside the vault and its own Obsidian plugin settings data. It does not access files outside the vault. Deleting a paper from the library sends its entire managed folder to the trash method configured in Obsidian.

Paid AI features

Local importing, organization, reading, and annotation do not require payment. The following actions require a Paper Manager billing key and consume credits:

  • Each Analyze or Reanalyze request.
  • Each new @pp question answered in a PDF comment.

A billing key is a credential for the external service at editable.artifact-kit.com. Paper Manager does not provide a separate account-creation flow inside Obsidian, and the key is not required for local features.

Credits are reserved or charged when an AI request starts, before generation finishes. The successful-result notice displays the amount charged and the remaining balance reported by the service. If a request fails after billing has started, it may already have consumed credits.

Privacy and data handling

Paper Manager does not contain client-side analytics, telemetry, advertising, or background network requests. Local library features remain inside your vault.

When—and only when—you explicitly select Analyze/Reanalyze or submit an @pp question, the plugin connects to https://editable.artifact-kit.com to:

  1. Start billable usage by sending the billing key, a random request ID, and the paper_manager product identifier.
  2. Send the complete managed source.pdf and request data for AI processing.

For analysis, request data includes the imported filename, current library title, analysis instructions, and the expected output schema. For @pp, it includes the question, up to the ten most recent question-and-answer turns in that comment thread, and text selected near the comment when available. The service returns the AI result and billing information such as credits charged and remaining credits.

The billing key is saved unencrypted in Obsidian's plugin settings data. It is not written into paper notes or annotation files. Treat the key as a secret and do not share your Obsidian configuration directory.

Server-side processing, retention, operational logging, subprocessors, and privacy-request contact details are described in the Editable Artifact Privacy Policy. Do not use AI features with confidential, sensitive, or third-party documents that you are not permitted to send to an external AI processing service.

Support and feedback

Report bugs and request features in GitHub Issues. Please do not include billing keys, private PDFs, or other sensitive data in an issue.

Development

Requires Node.js 20 or later.

npm install
npm run build

Use npm run dev for watch mode. To deploy to a local development vault, copy local.config.example.json to local.config.json, set its absolute vaultPath, and run:

npm run build:obsidian

For continuous local builds with the Obsidian Hot Reload plugin, run:

npm run dev:obsidian

You can override the configured vault for one invocation with the OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH environment variable.

License

Paper Manager is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. Personal, educational, charitable, and other noncommercial uses are permitted under its terms. Commercial use requires a separate license from the copyright holder; contact the author through the project repository to discuss commercial licensing.

Third-party dependencies remain subject to their respective licenses and notices.

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