Can I update an existing reference with metadata from an imported PDF?

snackeroni

Hi everyone, a new Zotero user here!

When importing a reference from Firefox using Zotero Connector, I find that with many of my references a lot of the information about the journal article, such as authors, volume, page numbers etc., aren't imported into Zotero (the PDF from the website isn't imported either)

here's an example of an article i'm having such an issue with: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c11214

however, when I download the PDF of that journal article, and then import that PDF into Zotero as a new reference, it is able to make a new citation with all the correct information (authors etc), filled in from the PDF.

if i import the PDF into the old reference though (by dragging it onto the old reference), the PDF is now added as a child item under the old reference, but none of the article information in the old reference is updated from the PDF.

so my question is, is there any way for me to get Zotero to update the information about an existing reference from a newly imported PDF? I don't want to have to end up with 2 references for every journal article, and I also don't want to have to go through the whole process of downloading the article as a PDF (this can be quite annoying with some publishers), then manually importing the PDF into Zotero, each time I want to add a new reference.

thank you for your help!

dstillman

here's an example of an article i'm having such an issue with: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c11214

There's currently an issue with saving PDFs on ACS, but that's it. You should see "ACS Publications" if you hover over the save button and get high-quality metadata there, and if you're not, something is wrong with your installation. See Troubleshooting Problems Saving to Zotero if that's the case.

For the main question, though, metadata updating is coming, but for now the easiest thing to do is to paste the DOI into Add Item by Identifier, select the two items, and merge them, choosing the newer item to keep.

jamesran

Do we have an estimate of when metadata updating is due, looking at Zotero as an alternative to Endnote to manage a large library but the import of nearly 1000 references from Endnote is problematic. I can either update from an export but no PDF, or import PDFs but then many are missing the metadata. An equivalent to Endnote's "Update References" is needed.

dstillman

the import of nearly 1000 references from Endnote is problematic

@jamesran: If you're having trouble importing from EndNote, you should start a new thread and provide more details. That should work fine.