Hi Paperpile team and folks,
Long-time user here—I’ve been with Paperpile for years, and it’s honestly the best reference manager out there for my autistic/ADHD brain. The way it handles organization is pure magic: fluid folders, tags, and libraries mean I can rearrange everything on the fly without losing momentum. For me, knowledge is all about organizing, and Paperpile nails that. Adding papers via the Chrome extension is seamless, and I’ve seen you all roll out some incredible updates lately—like the Safari and Firefox integrations, which open it up to more users. Plus, the upcoming AI features sound exciting; I know that’s been a huge focus with how fast things are evolving. You guys are clearly working hard and being super responsive—major props!
That said, there are a few small friction points that keep popping up in my daily workflow. These are mostly quick QoL fixes that would save mental energy and let me stay in the flow. I’ve mentioned some before, but here’s a clear rundown:
• Paper-level notes (the ones for remembering key takeaways on a paper): These are crucial for jogging my memory about what a paper’s about, but they don’t preserve line breaks—everything collapses into a wall of text when I reload. Links aren’t clickable either, so if I want to reference another paper, I have to copy-paste manually. My workaround? Adding a vertical line of dots for spacing to make it readable, but it’s clunky and feels unnecessary for such a core feature. Basic support for line breaks, clickable links, and maybe simple formatting (bold/italic, bullets) would be a game-changer without turning it into a full editor.
• Back navigation in PDFs for citations: When I’m reading (say, in the methods section) and click a citation to jump to the references, there’s no easy way back to my exact spot—I have to scroll up, which risks distractions from figures or tables. A simple “back” arrow to return to where I was would be huge. Also, hover previews for full citations (like in Zotero) while reading would speed things up without leaving the page.
• In-PDF highlight notes: When adding a note to a highlight, pressing Enter is inconsistent—sometimes it adds a line break and stays open, sometimes it closes the note and jumps back to the text. I’d love it to reliably allow multi-paragraph notes without exiting prematurely.
I know you’re in the midst of a big PDF viewer overhaul, and these might fit into that. They’re small things, but they add up to unnecessary friction in high-stakes research, where every second of flow matters. 
On a related note, the “internal tracker” for suggestions is a smart idea in theory—it values community input and keeps things organized, which I appreciate (especially if the team likes batching and roadmaps for efficiency). But honestly, it can feel a bit discouraging: seeing old threads (4-5 years sometimes) with +1s but no updates makes me hesitate to post. It’s not truly representative since only detail-oriented heavy users (like those of us spotting these snags) tend to chime in or vote—most folks just adapt without noticing or complaining. For quick, low-impact fixes that boost QoL (without derailing bigger projects), maybe lean on some “enlightened dev” evaluation based on merit rather than pure votes? 
No perfect system, I get it, but it’d encourage more feedback from users like me.
Anyway, thanks for all the great work—you’re already making research smoother, and these tweaks would take it to the next level. Excited to see what’s coming!
Best,
Samuel