Right-Hand Pane Missing - unable to change metadata of pdfs

mgm4567 · 2025-12-16T17:12:33+00:00

Hello,

I’m having an issue with Zotero and need some guidance. I dragged a PDF into my library, but Zotero didn’t automatically record the author, date, or year. When I try to manually add this information, the Info pane (where I would normally edit metadata) isn’t showing.

I’ve tried:

Using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+I / Cmd+Option+I)

Checking View → Layout → Right Pane

Ensuring Zotero is up to date

But the right-hand pane still doesn’t appear.

As a workaround, I know I could create a new item and attach the PDF, but I would like to edit metadata directly on the PDF if possible.

Has anyone experienced this issue? Any suggestions for getting the Info pane to appear, or another method to manually add author/date/year to a PDF in Zotero?

Thanks in advance for your help!

dstillman · 2025-12-16T17:13:50+00:00

Can you provide a screenshot of what you're seeing?

If you just mean that you see the item pane but not the Info pane within it that lets you add metadata, you just need to create a parent item:

https://www.zotero.org/support/adding_items_to_zotero#standalone_attachments_and_parent_items

adamsmith · 2025-12-16T17:15:04+00:00

You've never been able to add/change metadata directly on a PDF, only on the parent item a PDF is attached to. Right-click --> Create parent item to attach that PDF to an empty parent, which you can then edit.

mgm4567 · 2025-12-16T17:19:08+00:00

Thanks!