How to PDF w/ Zotero

CS,

Question: How do i import PDFs and save them in Zotero?

I down loaded and installed the required mod but I cant seem to open a PDF or save a PDF to Zotero. In short, how do I use Zotero and PDFs?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
  • To actually get PDFs into Zotero (before retrieving the metadata as noksagt suggests) you can:

    for a file on your computer...

    • Click on the new item button (green cross) and select "store copy of file".
    • Right click on an item in Zotero and select Add attachment -> store copy of file
    • Drag a file into Zotero from where it is stored on your computer
    for a file online...

    • Open the PDF in Firefox and click on the "create new item from current page" button (to the right of the green cross).
    • Open the PDF and right click on an existing item, selecting: add attachment -> attach snapshot of current page.
    • Enable "Automatically attach associated PDFs ..." in the general pane of preferences, and then save an item to Zotero from a journal's website using the address bar button - the PDF will automatically be attached.
    N.B. Zotero opens PDFs in the same way as Firefox does, so if you can't open a PDF within in Firefox you may need to install a plugin, such as the one included with Adobe Reader or the PDF X-Change viewer.
  • Oh, forgot to mention, you can also drag a link to a PDF onto a Zotero item to attach the PDF to that item, or drag the favicon (the little icon to the left of the address bar) into Zotero if you have the PDF open. I think that covers all the ways ;)
  • edited September 21, 2009
    Thank you so much for help =D

    Exactly what i was looking for!

    (I had looked at "http://www.zotero.org/support/retrieve_pdf_metadata" but I needed a bit more guidance)
  • In case this is of assistance to other new Zotero users:

    A. In Zotero v. 1, when you where looking at an URL that was a PDF, if you hit the "Create New Items from Current Page", you would get a new item with the PDF attached.

    B. In Zotero v. 2, when you do the same, you only get the the PDF, with no item attached. I found this frustrating. My initial workaround was to save the PDF to my desktop, create a new item, and then attach the PDF to the new item. It worked, but a whole bunch of extra steps that were not needed in v.1.

    C. It seems the new way of working with Zotero v.2 is to instead create a New Item, and then "Attach a Snapshot of the Page" under the "New Child Attachment" menu. This saves a copy of the PDF with the new item. This accomplishes the same as in A above, but with an extra step involved - but much less frustrating than first saving the PDF to your desktop.

    Can a Zotero guru confirm this is the best way of quickly saving web-based PDFs, if you want it embedded in an item?
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