merging duplicate deletes pdf

stroom
in the process of merging dupes, it turned out that pdf's are omitted. They disappear from the merged entry. Instead, a note called 'Contents' appears, which contains the table of contents. By preparing the process I keep collecting identical notes with 'Contents'
What's happening here? Something changed in version 6?
I don't know why but maybe it helps to know that I use Zotero with external pdf-editor
  • stroom
    debug ID D94903676
  • dstillman
    Duplicate PDFs are now merged. You can find the deleted one in the trash.
    Instead, a note called 'Contents' appears, which contains the table of contents.
    That's just a note from one of the items.
  • stroom
    Thank you. What is merging 2 pdf's? I would expect the result to be a double sized pdf, or something very complicated (e.g. how the merge 2 completely different pdf's from two items?). You suggest merging is deleting one (or more) and keeping the other?

    I can imagine two options:

    1 - both (or even more) of the dupes contain a pdf. As far as I know from the past, in the merge they are all saved to the merged item. So I end up with 2 or more pdf's attached to one (merged) item. I have to check which one(s) to keep. But that's not the case anymore? What if those 2 entries are genuine dupes, but the pdf's are not?
    You suggest pdf's might be thrown in the trash? But which one? What if one or both contain important annotations? How to choose which one to delete? I think it's very difficult for Zotero to know which to delete (without warning)

    2 - only 1 item of the dupes contains a pdf. Merging 1 + 0 pdf yields? I should expect 1 pdf. Not 0 pdf.
    The latter is my case here.

    I'm still confused whats happening. Why 0 pdf's (only in trash), why a growing amount of notes with 'Contents'?
    I repeated, this time first deleted the notes with 'Contents' ID D779594283. Only single attachment deleted, no notes created.
  • dstillman
    I think it's very difficult for Zotero to know which to delete
    It's not. Only PDFs that are identical on a file level or have essentially the same content are merged, and all user data (e.g., annotations) is transferred to the remaining PDF. Different documents won't be merged. This has been a common request, and it was arguably just a bug that this didn't happen before.
    2 - only 1 item of the dupes contains a pdf. Merging 1 + 0 pdf yields? I should expect 1 pdf. Not 0 pdf.
    The latter is my case here.
    It should be 1, but it looks like there's a bug in the current version where if one of the items already has an attachment in the trash, that can be counted as one of the attachments to keep, such that you end up only with attachments in the trash for an item. We'll fix that for the next version, but you can choose one of the attachments in the trash and undelete it.
    why a growing amount of notes with 'Contents'?
    Those are the embedded notes from the deleted attachments, presumably generated with ZotFile previously. Zotero moves the embedded note to a child note when moving the attachment to the trash, since otherwise it would be lost. If you don't want these, you can easily remove them in batch via search and Select All, but they're only there because you created them with ZotFile.
  • stroom
    1- ok great. Seems fancy to me, but indeed a nice feature. A small question: I do have a lot of old stuff. Meaning: scan's which I OCR'ed. I always keep the original next to the OCR (especially Adobe can seriously mess up a OCR'd pdf). The OCR version is used for annotations etc. These are 2 (or more, sometimes even a zip) attachments which are connected to a single Zotero entry. This should not be a problem in the new style merge?

    2 - Ok, for now I'll be careful checking attachments after a merge

    3 - Do not understand: I only use Zotfile for the automatic renaming rules. Or I think I do ;) Anyway, not very important.

    thank you
  • dstillman
    These are 2 (or more, sometimes even a zip) attachments which are connected to a single Zotero entry. This should not be a problem in the new style merge?
    Correct. If they're not exactly the same file and they don't have almost exactly the same extracted text content, they won't be merged and will all be moved to the merged item.
    3 - Do not understand: I only use Zotfile for the automatic renaming rules. Or I think I do ;) Anyway, not very important.
    ZotFile has a setting to extract the ToC and add it to the attachment note. These aren't from Zotero.
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