Update entry downloading file

mysync

Greetings,

I'm using the Zotero Firefox plugin, together with a Sync account.

right now I'm at home, and I don't have access to many articles because they are behind a paywall. So I'm just saving the abstracts.

From my University account I can download such articles, because they pay the fee to grant access.

My plan is to work from home today, adding entries with only the abstracts, and then go to my University lab tomorrow to download the complete pdf articles.

Will Zotero allow me to refresh my entries and add the pdf downloads without heavy manual adjustments?

I'd like to do it with a click on the icon next to the URL bar and _not_ having to recreate all my entries. Right now I'm worried clicking the icon will only create duplicates.

BTW I need a procedure that works across multiple computers (I'm using sync) without workarounds.

Thanks.

adamsmith

Sorry, that won't work. Clicking the URL bar icon will indeed just create duplicates. You could work around this to some extent, but you say you're not interested in that, so with those restrictions you're basically out of luck.

That said--I've never heard of a university that doesn't allow you access to paywalled articles from home, either via proxy and/or via VPN connection, so I'd look into that.

aurimas

But the workaround is not terribly difficult (if you're somewhat lucky). You would go to an entry in Zotero, click the URL field to take you to the page, find the PDF and drag-drop the link onto the Zotero item (only slightly more work than clicking the URL bar icon, as you had planned).

If the PDF link doesn't actually lead to a PDF document, but to another web page that embeds a PDF document, then you do actually have to find a link to the actual PDF (that could be difficult).

This would also not work if the resource is proxied (generally access from within universities does not require proxy) or otherwise requires some sort of cookie setting (they rarely do)

Long term goal is for us to add a way to just fetch the PDF from within Zotero without having to open up any web pages. That won't happen at least for several more months though.

mysync

That would be nice.

I set up a proxy, but that creates problems with Zotero's sync, I don't know why, since I used FoxyProxy to activate it only when I'm on an academic website. Any idea why?

adamsmith

You can report the proxy issue on a separate thread, though I can see a selective proxy causing issues. Normally there'd be two ways to do this:

1. The university proxies individual URLs using a service like EZProxy. You'd actually see the proxy as part of URLs when connecting to paywalled sources. That would be the standard way to go about this and it doesn't cause any issues with Zotero sync.

2. You proxy all web traffic. That'd be unusual for academic purposes, though would work with Zotero, too. You'd have to set your proxy up in the system proxy settings, though. Zotero recognizes those for syncing.

Instead of the latter, most universities of VPN to route all web traffic through university servers. That, again, causes no issue with ZOtero.