Files exported from Mendeley with attached PDFs--lock icon

jpk15 · August 28, 2014

Hi: i'm in the process of exporting my Mendeley library to Zotero. I'm using RIS export--it works fine, except certain files with attached pdfs have a gray lock icon instead of a pdf icon (some, not all). In Mendeley, they are regular pdfs. I can open these lock-icon pdfs on my computer in Zotero, but when I sync, the online version does not have the full text--it lists the name of the file, and the lock icon, but no full text. Any idea what this lock icon indicates, and how I can get these pdfs to successfully export from Mendeley using RIS? Thank you. Jim

adamsmith · August 28, 2014

the lock icon usually indicates that you have limited or no permissions to access that file (it's a operating system symbol, not a Zotero symbol), which would also explain why file syncing may fail. Try to work with file permissions. If you don't know how, google your operating system and "change file permissions".

jpk15 · August 29, 2014

Thanks for suggestion--what appears to be happening is that Zotero is, for most (but not all) of the PDFs, not importing them into my Zotero storage folder, but into a separate PDF folder I have on my desktop. I opened the RIS file in Word, but couldn't see any difference there between the one PDF imported successfully, and the others dumped into the PDF folder and linked to (but not imported). Any idea why Zotero is doing such a thing? Thanks

adamsmith · August 29, 2014

are you sure it's actually importing the PDFs to that folder? Because Zotero can't really do that (unless you have ZotFile installed). My suspicion would be that they're already in the folder on the desktop and Zotero can't move them (because of permission issues).

aurimas · August 29, 2014

(Though Zotero wouldn't be _moving_ but copying the files, so _all_ PDFs should appear there and it would only need read permissions)

jpk15 · August 29, 2014

Found the problem--my Zotfile preferences set for location of files=custom location (my pdf folder). When I change that to "attach stored copy of files," every PDF imports successfully. Thanks so much!