Upgrade StorageRetrieving metadata from PDF: first names as initials
It seems that whenever I bring a paper into Zotero by drag&dropping a local copy of a PDF file (or a web link to it) and then use the "Retrieve Metadata From PDF" command to fill in title details etc, the first names of authors are always filled in only as initials.
By contrast, when I bring items into Zotero the normal way (by using the button in the address bar), the name fields are filled in properly, i.e. first names are not just initials.
I know that the "Retrieve Metadata From PDF" command only has at its disposal whatever information is in the PDF itself, but most of the time the authors' names are written in full in a paper, which leads me to believe that there is a "Feature" in Zotero - which, if it exists, I don't really see the point to - that converts first names to only initials. This is inconvenient and adds a lot of work because you then need to manually edit author names that are written differently (e.g. J. Doe vs John Doe) to make sure they don't appear as different authors in your bibliography.
By contrast, when I bring items into Zotero the normal way (by using the button in the address bar), the name fields are filled in properly, i.e. first names are not just initials.
I know that the "Retrieve Metadata From PDF" command only has at its disposal whatever information is in the PDF itself, but most of the time the authors' names are written in full in a paper, which leads me to believe that there is a "Feature" in Zotero - which, if it exists, I don't really see the point to - that converts first names to only initials. This is inconvenient and adds a lot of work because you then need to manually edit author names that are written differently (e.g. J. Doe vs John Doe) to make sure they don't appear as different authors in your bibliography.
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adamsmithretrieve metadata normally uses data from google scholar (not from the pdf), which, for some reason, never has full first names - if it did, Zotero would import them. Nothing can be done here - sorry.
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ajlyonAs more and more PDFs start to include the DOI, this might improve, since Zotero tries to find a DOI first. The CrossRef database, which is used for DOI lookups, generally has full names.