Moving to Zotero feels like the exodus

Plasmatron
I've been _trying_ to migrate to Zotero ever since I first heard it was released. I consider it to be THE bibliography management software, no other (and I've tried many) offers the capabilities and potentialities Zotero exhibits.

However, it feels really difficult to migrate. Personally, and after 2 years of research for my phd, I have a pdf database of over 250 papers. In the past, I've managed this collection using EndNote (Windows), JabRef (Java) and recently also Referencer (Linux). I've used cb2bib for getting metadata from the pdf, and now Referencer offers automatic 'doi' search once a pdf file is added to the collection, so metadata is obtained usually from a web database.

In Zotero, opening a pdf from my (local hdd) collection does not allow me to add it like a new item (no 'new-item' icon in the url line). If I choose 'Create a new item from current page', the pdf file is added to the collection but no metadata is obtained, rendering it completely useless for local bibliographic search. Importing the bibtex (.bib) file created by other applications (such as, but not limited to, those described above) fills the collection with all metadata needed (nothing magic here: Zotero is only reading and parsing the bibtex file I gave) but no link to the pdf files is established even when the bib file explicitly contained such links. What is the user supposed to do? Rebuild the collection by online searching *again* for the papers and the associated metadata he already have?

Now I'm willing to use Zotero, but I think there's some migrating issue that is still not resolved. It would seem like it's easy to use it to build a collection from scratch, but that it could prove to be very frustrating if you want to migrate to it with just your baggage of pdf files.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance and congrats for this fine piece of great software!
(My remarks are made from an ignorant's constructive-perpective criticism!
  • Tjowens
    This issue has come up a few times but has not been completely resolved. See this thread for a bit more information. http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3079/
  • mark
    What is the user supposed to do? Rebuild the collection by online searching *again* for the papers and the associated metadata he already have?
    No, this isn't needed if you already have the metadata. If you can do what you describe (import the metadata, though while losing the PDF link), the only thing you would need to do is subsequently drag and drop the PDFs onto the respective citations in Zotero, thereby linking them and copying them to the Zotero storage folder. If the filenames of your PDFs contain enough information, this is quite a straightforward -if repetitive- process. (If they don't, you will have to open them to see what citation they pertain to, which would take a lot more time; unless you can display the citations and filenames together in one of your other bibliographic managers.)

    I do agree that it is quite frustrating that the link to a PDF, if it is present in a Bibtex file, is lost upon importing into Zotero. It shouldn't be; it could be parsed instead and Zotero should be able to integrate the PDF into the library just fine. I think this is quite an essential feature and certainly one that will help people migrate more smoothly.

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