Transfer "pages" to "# of pages" when changing item type

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Retrieve PDF Metadata: a suggestion.
  • julian.blanc
    I for one am grateful to the Zotero team for the Retrieve metadata for PDF feature. It's much more convenient than typing title and author(s).

    I have just one small peeve. When the user changes the reference type from Journal Article to, say, thesis, in the dropdown at the top of the metadata pane, Zotero will warn that the content of the field "pages" will be deleted.

    It would be great if, instead, Zotero automatically transferred the content of the "pages" field to the "# of Pages" field.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    (Please start new threads for new issues — the thread you posted to isn't related at all. I've moved this to a new thread.)

    "Pages" and "# of Pages" mean different things, so it wouldn't be appropriate to preserve the field when switching types.
  • julian.blanc
    edited December 10, 2022
    I get that they are different things. But is is the PDF Metatadata retriever that puts the number of pages of a PDF file in the "Pages" field of the journal article reference type. It is therefore the PDF metadata retriever that mixes things up in the first place. I was just suggesting a way of undoing that wrongdoing. Another way of correcting that is to simply not have the number of pages of the PDF document retrieved by the retriever.

    (Thanks for moving to a new thread. But "isn't related at all" is a bit of a stretch. The thread I posted to is about the behaviour of the Retrieve PDF Metadata function).
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited December 10, 2022
    (Thanks for moving to a new thread. But "isn't related at all" is a bit of a stretch. The thread I posted to is about the behaviour of the Retrieve PDF Metadata function).
    Yes, and your question, as asked, had nothing to do with Retrieve PDF Metadata. It was about changing item types. You'd get the exact same behavior you described if you created the journal article item manually and tried to change the type.

    If your actual question is about incorrect data imported by Retrieve PDF Metadata for a given file, you should ask that question and provide a link to the PDF in question or tell us where we can find it so that we can take a look. (And it would still belong in a new thread.)
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    But is is the PDF Metatadata retriever that puts the number of pages of a PDF file in the "Pages" field of the journal article reference type.
    It looks like this happens for PDFs without recognized identifiers that Zotero extracts basic metadata for (with "Zotero" in the Library Catalog field). That is indeed incorrect, and we'll fix that — thanks.
  • julian.blanc
    Thank you for your helpful guidance.
    And yes, that is exactly the problem I was pointing out – for PDFs without identifiers – thanks for the acknowledgement.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    This is now fixed for new items. We'll see what we can do to correct existing items with this incorrect field.
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