Drag & Drop malfunction
Hi, all.
I'm new to Zortero and not familiar with trouble shooting it. I'm trying to add a bunch of PDF's to a fairly new install, maybe about 100 pdfs so far. The drag & drop was working last night before shutting down, but not now. Don't know of anything that has changed. I would like to resolve that issue, but I would also like no know if there is any other way to add PDFs from my system, not downloaded, it appears that this is the only process available, which seems unusual, because there are usually multiple ways of achieving an action as basic as this.
I'm new to Zortero and not familiar with trouble shooting it. I'm trying to add a bunch of PDF's to a fairly new install, maybe about 100 pdfs so far. The drag & drop was working last night before shutting down, but not now. Don't know of anything that has changed. I would like to resolve that issue, but I would also like no know if there is any other way to add PDFs from my system, not downloaded, it appears that this is the only process available, which seems unusual, because there are usually multiple ways of achieving an action as basic as this.
When I setup the software and signed up for an account, I was surprised to find that I had already done that back in 2015, but I had forgotten completely about it and moved on. This could have been the reason. Maybe we will have this conversation in another 4 years, but I'll probably forget about this it by then as well. I looking at Mendeley again, their Android version works, hopefully the desktop will as well. Good luck on the PDF issue.
If you’re trying to do something else, you’ll need to explain exactly what that is.
Either way, if you have "Automatically rename metadata for PDFs" selected in the General pane of Zotero preferences, as it is by default, and the PDF can be recognized, Zotero will create a parent item with metadata. If that setting is off, you would need to right-click on the standalone PDF and select Retrieve Metadata for PDF, which runs the same process that happens automatically by default.
To be clear, not all PDFs will have metadata detected. Generally speaking, academic PDFs will usually be recognized (and ones with DOIs on the front page should nearly always be), and other files that are just random documents converted to PDF won't be recognized. If you drag a PDF that can't be recognized, it will remain as a top-level attachment.
If a file can't be detected but metadata is available for it somewhere online, you would want to just save from the browser using the Save to Zotero button or use Add Item by Identifier and add the PDF to that item (if the PDF wasn't saved automatically) rather than entering metadata manually. If you really need to add metadata manually, you can right-click on the unrecognized top-level PDF and choose Create Parent Item.
I'd encourage you to read through Adding Items to Zotero for more on all of this.