Get metadata - skip?

dbrear · May 3, 2020

Sometimes Zotero takes so long to get metadata for a PDF it would be good to have a Skip option so it could get on with all the other items.

bwiernik · May 3, 2020

Note that you should almost never need to use the Retrieve Metadata function in regular practice. The best method for adding items to your library is the Save to Zotero button in your web browser, clicked while on the publisher webpage. That will grab both the highest quality metadata and the PDF.

dstillman · May 3, 2020

@dbrear: If you can reproduce this, I'd be curious to see a Debug ID that shows it happening. Our ability to cancel an in-flight request depends on exactly what's happening.

dbrear · May 4, 2020

Thank you - maybe I don't use Zotero as it's intended to be used.
I download my PDFs to a Temp folder where I process them - check if I've already got them, change bland names to meaningful ones, etc - and then drop them into Zotero.
Then I go through and add the metadata - using Zotero but with a chance to check accuracy, add missing fields, etc. (I find alterations are often needed). Since I'm dealing with 50 or so at a time a slowdown early on can disrupt the process.
I'll try and remember debug with the next batch - I've got 140 in Temp at the moment so it should be quite soon!
Going through this process takes time but I like to have correct results. I think I'm probably a much better librarian than historian.

dstillman · May 4, 2020

Yeah, while this shouldn't freeze regardless, what you're doing really isn't the recommended workflow. See Adding Items to Zotero.

This isn't about checking metadata — you have to do that regardless. It's just about the way Zotero is designed to be used, and what will generally get you the best results with the least effort (e.g., without wasting time on things like renaming files manually).

dbrear · May 4, 2020

My library started with Academia (https://www.academia.edu/) and I still get a lot of PDFs that way. But I search for articles with Google and download them to Temp as well.
If I click on the Zotero Connector button it saves a snapshot of the Academia page to Zotero - this is often useful and I use it. But if I want the PDF I have to click on the Academia Download button and the PDF goes into my Download folder - whence I have to save it to my Temp folder, etc.
I don't view PDFs in my browser - I use a PDF reader - so the connector doesn't get chance to see and save them that way.
It isn't the Academia page I want, which is what Zotero saves, it's the PDF. I don't use university library pages - I'm not an academic.
Sorry to go on - I thought you might be interested to read how someone uses your magnificent tool.

Incidentally, I'm writing an article about Zotero and its wonders for our Yorkshire CBA magazine - https://www.cba-yorkshire.org.uk/current-forum-edition/

dbrear · May 4, 2020

Incidentally, I think you've said before that Zotero is designed to (re)name files for me. But I like to have filenames that mean something, not just dbrear1999.pdf.

dstillman · May 5, 2020

I don't use university library pages - I'm not an academic.

We're not really talking about university library pages, for what it's worth — we're mostly talking about the main abstract page for a paper on the publisher's website (though if you don't have institutional access you may need to download the PDF separately). Zotero can also save metadata and PDFs from Google Scholar.

I don't view PDFs in my browser - I use a PDF reader - so the connector doesn't get chance to see and save them that way.

Up to you, but if you're regularly saving PDFs to Zotero, I'd recommend leaving your browser set to preview PDFs, using the Save to Zotero button to save the PDF directly to Zotero (and kick off PDF metadata retrieval), and simply clicking the download button in the browser's PDF viewer if you want to download a PDF outside of Zotero.

An upcoming version of the connector will also gain the ability to attach a PDF you're viewing in the browser to the currently selected item in Zotero, which would let you save high-quality metadata from somewhere (e.g., the publisher's article page) and then easily attach a PDF you found separately without needing to save the PDF to disk and drag it onto the item in Zotero. We're also planning to restore some old functionality (lost in the Zotero for Firefox → Zotero transition) to save a PDF from a link, which would let you save to Zotero even if you didn't preview PDFs in the browser.

But I like to have filenames that mean something, not just dbrear1999.pdf.

Zotero doesn't name things "dbrear1999.pdf". By default, it names things with the author, year, and title. If you want something different, ZotFile provides a huge number of options for customizing the renaming based on the metadata.