Can't manually add bibliographic data

clnrosner
Hello:

I just started using Zotero, and am trying to populate it with articles I have been saving on my desktop over the past years.

When I drag a document (mainly articles saved as word or pdf) from my desktop files into Zotero, it saves the document, but does not allow me to change any of the citation/biblio information.

The right pane only shows the Title, Filename, Pages, Modified Date and Tags - and there are no buttons on the top row that allow editing. For new articles downloaded from the internet (JSTOR for example), it 'Retrieves Metadata' and gives options to edit all fields. None of these options appear for the articles I am dragging and dropping.

I cannot possibly use Zotero if there is no way to manually insert bibliographic info for the 80+ articles I will drag and drop into the library.

Any guidance much appreciated!

Thanks!
  • clnrosner
    This may have answered my question:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/screencast_tutorials/getting_stuff_into_zotero
  • DWL-SDCA
    What version of Zotero? What is your operating system?

    If you drag a pdf file into Zotero, it should show in the center pane. Right click on the file and select the extract metadata option. Zotero will try to fill the right panel fields. This isn't always successful.
  • clnrosner
    Thanks so much.

    I just watched the 'getting stuff into zotero' video and realized if the metadata isn't available, I need to FIRST create a new document, then fill in biblio data, then drag the pdf/doc into that document....

    This should solve the problem for now.

    Appreciate the help!
  • aurimas
    Besides what DWL-SDCA recommends (and if that method is not able to extract metadata), the "correct" (more convenient perhaps) way to do this would be to right-click the files you dragged in and select "Create Parent Item from Selected Item". This will attach the file to a new bibliographic entry. You can also select multiple files and do the same thing.

    @Dan, Simon
    While I don't really use this sort of workflow, the name for "Create Parent Item..." action is quite obscure.

    1) I think a convenient place to display this action (in addition to the context menu) would be right above the file name in the right-side panel. IMO this would be much less confusing to the users, since if they go and try to edit bibliographic metadata for a file, they will see a button.

    2) I would also suggest renaming this action to "Attach File/Note to Bibliographic Metadata".
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