How to import online PDFs properly?

IsaakM · December 13, 2016

Hi,
when I find a journal article or any pdf file online and I want to add it to the library, there are several approaches. I can add the actual pdf file to my library and try to index all the bibliographic information. I usually don't want to add the file to the library, but just the reference to the online file. Instead of treating the reference to an online article as a journal article, Zotero will usually just save the name of the pdf file and treat it as a website, without adding the information for author, title, abstract, date and so on. Is is possible to reference an online pdf properly without having to add and edit all these info manually?

adamsmith · December 13, 2016

what's an example (i.e. the URL)? Whether it can be done automatically depends on whether there is metadata for it somewhere.

IsaakM · December 13, 2016

For example this one (German language):
http://doku.iab.de/fdz/reporte/2012/MR_04-12.pdf

Zotero will define it as website (it's actually a sort of report) and it will only take the name of the pdf file as title. This is when I save it without snapshot (I only need the reference for later usage, no need to download / add the actual file to the library).

adamsmith · December 13, 2016

If you import it from EconPapers or Ideas/Repec
http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/iabiabfme/201204_5fde.htm
you'll get the metadata.
Google scholar is another way:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Arbeiten+und+Lernen+im+Wandel:+Teil+V:+Die+Codierung+der+offenen+Angaben+zur+beruflichen+Tätigkeit,+Ausbildung+und+Branche&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33

Best I can tell, from the IAB page it will never have any metadata, so nothing automatic there.

IsaakM · December 13, 2016

I see - it depends on the platform / host from where I access the file, right?

adamsmith · December 13, 2016

right -- it depends on the page the file is linked from (i.e. the abstract or landing page)

IsaakM · December 13, 2016

Thanks for your help!