Unable to index files in my library

ava.whitlock
edited November 17, 2024
Report ID: 1156495772

When I add PDFs to my library, Zotero cannot index them. This has been a consistent problem for the past few PDFs I have added. Then, I cannot highlight or underline any information in the PDFs because they have not been indexed. It is defeating the purpose of me adding them in because I cannot edit and annotate them like usual. When I go to retrieve the metadata of the file, once again, nothing appears. I have attached a picture of that.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u15649378/xidvj49hl238pkz8zgt8.png
[edit fixed image url]
  • dstillman
    edited November 16, 2024
    This isn't about "indexing", which refers to making documents searchable. This just sounds like you're adding PDFs that are just images and don't have a text layer. In that case, there'd be nothing to highlight or underline, and Zotero wouldn't be able to extract text to recognize the document and retrieve metadata for it. You can use an OCR program to add a text layer.

    You can open the PDF in any other PDF reader to test. If you can't select text, there's no text layer.

    If you don't think that's the issue here, provide a link to one of the PDFs, or send one to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread.
  • ava.whitlock
    I don't think that is the issue, as I have saved a handful of PDFs before to my computer and added them to Zotero from there, and they have worked fine. It has only been a consistent issue for the past few that I've tried adding, and I didn't change any steps. I only mention the indexing issue because these two came along simultaneously, so I'm assuming they are related.

    Here is a link to one of them that isn't working: https://www.flipsnack.com/AA755F5569B/bark-beetle-paper/full-view.html
  • aborel
    I could be wrong, but I don't think there is much information that Zotero can capture in this example: there doesn't seem to be any useful metadata on the web page, and the document itself doesn't seem to be a PDF (more like a dynamically rendered series of images).
    Can anybody see the image in the first post? If not, maybe it could be uploaded somewhere so that we get a more general view of the situation.
  • dstillman
    Yeah, @ava.whitlock, can you explain exactly how you're saving? What you linked to isn't a PDF.
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