Keywords to tags conversion not working during drag'n'drop pdf import

d.airola · 2026-01-16T12:49:15+00:00

Hi,

Considering the situation where the Zotero browser Connector cannot help, a PDF import can only be performed by a traditional drag'n'drop.

Within this context, Zotero seems to ignore the keywords embedded in the PDF Info Tags easily extracted by other open source tools like exiftool (see https://exiftool.org/TagNames/PDF.html).

Does exist any workaround for solving this problem?

Thanks

adamsmith · 2026-01-16T13:31:09+00:00

No, Zotero basically ignore XMP metadata (the format tags & other info is written to PDFs) because it's more likely to be useless than useful.

d.airola · 2026-01-16T13:53:43+00:00

Wow, thanks.
this is really a pity considering that metadata are exactly designed for that purpose and since at least one international standardization entity is issuing worldwide standards by properly use that mode.

martynas_b · 2026-01-16T16:47:39+00:00

@d.airola PDF metadata is often quite rudimentary. From what source that PDF comes from? If publishers are adding high-quality metadata to the PDFs, we might consider importing it.

d.airola · 2026-01-19T09:14:15+00:00

@martynas_b I totally agree that PDF metadata is not the best-in-class solution, but since it is the most basic approach it should be supported by Zotero.

With regard to the PDF source, I was referring to International Telecommunication Union (aka ITU).
Please find as follow:
- a link to a section of ITU-R recommendation https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BT/en
- a link to the root page of ITU-R recomendations (aggregated by topic): https://www.itu.int/pub/R-REC