Rename file from parent metadata not changing file name

eobara

In the last month or so I noticed that when I right-click an attached file and click Rename file from parent metadata, it changes the title of the file that shows up in Zotero, but when I double-click the entry to open the PDF, the PDF title does not have the Creator - Year - Title format it shows in Zotero. It typically only shows the article title. As I often have 5-10 PDFs open at once it is frustrating to have to scroll to the top of each article to figure out which article I'm in the middle of looking at, as the Creator and Year parts are the most useful pieces of information.

I tried going to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Config Editor > Searched "attachmentRenameFormatString", and the Value does show {%c - }{%y - }{%t{50}}. I also tried right-clicking a renamed PDF and clicking Show File, but the file there also shows the Creator - Year - Title format I want. It just doesn't translate to the actual file when I open it. This didn't occur until recently. How can I fix this?

adamsmith

That's not the file name, is the "title" in the item's metadata, which Zotero doesn't touch. It doesn't seem like there is a super easy fix for that, see e.g.
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/default-to-show-file-name-vs-title-of-doc-when-converting-from-word-to-pdf/td-p/9673161

eobara

Strange. I actually went back and found that up through December 6, 2019, all of my PDFs would be titled the way I wanted them once I clicked rename file from parent metadata. The next time I used Zotero was three days later on December 9, 2019 and this no longer seems to be the case when I use the Chrome extension. I tried removing and re-adding the extension and it did not solve the problem. If I do not use the extension and download an article to my computer, then attach the file to a parent item in Zotero, then the PDF will have my preferred naming convention even though the PDF in my downloads folder is just a series of numbers. Did there happen to be a change in the title convention of PDFs since December 6?

adamsmith

So you're saying that the _same_ file downloaded to your computer and then added to Zotero behaves differently from adding it by extension?

Note that this really isn't about the file name or the naming convention. None of that has changed and file renaming is still working for you in all scenarios (that's what you see with Show File).

"title" is an internal meta-tag of a PDF and I'd be very surprised if Zotero ever touched it. Could it be that your version of Acrobat updated? I think older versions just displayed the filename at the top of the window.

eobara

Curious, the test article I used must have been an anomaly. I just tried a couple more from different sources and I'm starting to think it has to do with where I am getting the article from. For example, it looks like JSTOR, where I get most of my articles, must have recently changed the way they title PDFs in a way that it not editable through Zotero but Ebscohost and Heinonline still allows the title to change as many times as I want through the Rename file with parent metadata function. Thank you for helping me identify the issue!

dstillman

it looks like JSTOR, where I get most of my articles, must have recently changed the way they title PDFs in a way that it not editable through Zotero but Ebscohost and Heinonline still allows the title to change as many times as I want through the Rename file with parent metadata function.

That's still a bit of misunderstanding, though. All Zotero touches is the filename. So it's not that EBSCO and Hein are letting you change the title via Zotero — it's presumably that they're just not assigning titles, and whatever context you're looking at is showing the title instead of the filename.

eobara

Got it. It looks like from the helpful link in adamsmith's post and others I have seen on Adobe forums that it is just not possible to set the default as displaying the filename instead of the title. How unfortunate.