Errors when trying to add PDF files to my library

sheryldunn

I keep getting errors when I am trying to add articles that are showing PDF icons instead of the Zotero icons on the bar. How do I fix this?

dstillman

I'm not totally sure I follow. What exactly is happening? Can you provide an example URL?

sheryldunn

https://www.nursingworld.org/~4af078/globalassets/docs/ana/ethics/endoflife-positionstatement.pdf

dstillman

OK, so that's just a random PDF. It's not a journal article or something with a DOI, so that would never show as anything other than just a PDF icon, and it's not something Zotero would be able to retrieve metadata for.

Just save it to Zotero, right-click and choose Create Parent Item, and enter the metadata manually.

sheryldunn

HI,
this is another example from my school's library website:
https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/272471/1-s2.0-S0260691719X00039/1-s2.0-S0260691718303381/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=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&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20190824T213549Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTYS7TLR6V7/20190824/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=ec53c7248cddf8a473a0974b51676ab4dc0d4d0428f67e62e652b1a5b5b7ac18&hash=35c5052f559c985456987948cd30248487feb6fd076275e0d9c1fc6f33b12fdd&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S0260691718303381&tid=spdf-b432d8df-03cc-4ab4-a021-d686a7de8d22&sid=7c6741b995b1734a423be4c7935a41f9554agxrqa&type=client

dstillman

That's a time-limited URL, so we can't try that. You'd have to provide the article page URL.

Generally, PDFs from ScienceDirect should work fine, but on ScienceDirect (and any similar site) you would want to save from the article page anyway (which will save the PDF if you have access to it) rather than from the PDF.