Link .pdfs to citations in Zotero

_DBDMMeta

I am running a meta-analysis and have not been able to get .pdfs (when they are available) to attach to imported citations. I am importing a RIS file from an EBSCO search of ERIC. I have also tried to import a citation from the Chrome extension. I am connected to my university's VPN. Is it possible to include .pdfs in Zotero?

dstillman

A RIS import would never have PDFs attached to it. It's just a file of metadata — you can open it in a text editor (Notepad, TextEdit) to see the contents.

Saving from EBSCO in the browser should result in PDFs attached if you have access to them. If that's not happening, are you not seeing PDFs listed in the save popup, or are you seeing them with an error icon? If the latter, we'd want to see a Debug ID from Zotero for a save attempt that fails to save the PDFs.

For items imported via RIS, if you're using a system-wide VPN (rather than a web-based proxy) you can try using right-click → Find Available PDFs to download PDFs after the fact (though for a large number of items you might hit upstream rate limits).

_DBDMMeta

Thank you. When I right click on items in Zotero that were imported through the browser I see "view online," which takes me to an anonymous EBSCO login - so no way to retrieve the document that way.

When I hit save from the Chrome extension I don't see any error icon pop up or pdfs. I do see .pdfs in the save popup. I just tried saving my search again and I found I was unable to save from EBSCO when more than 20 results were listed per page. So I saved my search with 20 items per page and again saw .pdfs listed in the pop-up

BUT when I go to Zotero, only 19/135 files contain .pfs when at least 80% of the 135 hits contained .pdfs

dstillman

When I right click on items in Zotero that were imported through the browser I see "view online," which takes me to an anonymous EBSCO login - so no way to retrieve the document that way.

No, I'm not talking about that. Find Available PDF is an option in the right-click menu — you can see it here . It only appears if the item has a URL or DOI and doesn't already have a PDF attached.

When I hit save from the Chrome extension I don't see any error icon pop up or pdfs. I do see .pdfs in the save popup. I

I'm not sure what you mean here. The error icon would be a red X next to the PDF in the save popup. If you see a PDF listed and the row turns from gray to black, the PDF was saved to Zotero. If you see a red X next to it, it failed.

We'd need a Debug ID for a save where the PDF didn't save to say more.

If I recall, EBSCO does rate-limiting, so you quite likely wont be able to do a meta-analysis through the web interface, and almost certainly pages and pages of PDFs wouldn't save. You'd need to export to RIS and try to find PDFs later.

_DBDMMeta

Yes, It looked like they all uploaded correctly, no red X, rows turned black. But I only see a few .pdfs.

I hear you too, it's much less fun to export from each page of 20 results, especially when I have 240 searches left. But if Zotero doesn't capture at least the majority of the full text...I guess we have to repeat the work again once it's time for coding

dstillman

But if Zotero doesn't capture at least the majority of the full text

I mean, it's not Zotero — Zotero will save the PDF if it's available. If the site blocks the download, we can't do anything about that. We just can't tell you more unless you provide the Debug ID I've asked for.

_DBDMMeta

Right.
I don't have a Debug ID. Where would I look for it?

dstillman

I linked to instructions above.