force attachment rename

JonEP
I have a pdf on file and linked to a zotero item. I would like zotero to rename the item using the zotero naming convention. It was previously possible to right-click on the item and then select "rename attachment" but this option is missing in zotero 8. I read the article on renaming, but I don't see how to do what I would like to do, which is to force zotero to rename my attachment file (the pdf file itself, in my folder).
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-8/#continuous-file-renaming
  • JonEP
    OK - found the settings. Thank you.
    A question: how to proceed in the following situation:

    A book is saved as a linked attachment using Editor - Book name

    However, individual chapters of the book are listed as individual entries in zotero. Each entry is linked to the original book (i.e., the pdf file "Editor - Book name.pdf")

    If I authorize zotero to go ahead and rename all attachments, won't it continuously rename that PDF each time it gets to a new chapter, so that the underlying pdf will have been renamed seven or eight times, and the links to that book's pdf will be broken for all the entries except the last one?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Probably. I think the best we could do there would be to check whether a file is linked to multiple attachments and avoid renaming in that case.

    If you wanted this to work, you'd have to split up the file into separate PDFs for the chapters.
  • tim820
    edited 6 days ago
    Since you are using linked files, note that Zotmoov still renames linked PDFs in the same way it always has, using Zotero's renaming scheme (as Zotfile did prior to that, using its own renaming scheme). If you select one or more PDFs and then right-click Zotmoov: Move Selected to Directory, it will move the file only if it is not *already* in your linked-files folder, but then it will *always* rename the title and filename as usual. As Zotmoov (and Zotfile) has always done, it will make the title and the filename the same (many people still prefer that approach).

    When renaming multiple files that way, if the renaming would result in a file with the same name, it will append a number to the filename to distinguish them (as Zotfile did).

    That is the way that most linked-file users are probably used to renaming files/titles when they change any of an item's metadata affecting their file naming scheme (eg year).

    If you prefer to rename files that way (and prefer matching title/filename), you would not use the new continuous file renaming.
  • JonEP
    edited today at 12:25am
    Hmmm - this all presents a serious problem for scholars with big libraries who have kept books intact as books and then linked individual entries to the book PDF. For humanities scholars, this is going to be an issue -- the reason we don't break books up into chapters is because the footnotes and bibliography are at the back of the book, there are maps at the front, etc. So, basically, I, and others of us who are in this situation (I have to imagine there are many) are not able to have Zotero rename linked PDFs, because if we set Zotero to automatically rename pdfs, we will have an apocalypse when it comes to the numerous scanned books in our collections. Not sure what to do - but I guess I'll look for a third-party solution (Zotmoov I am guessing) or else I'll have to manually rename all PDFs and then link to them once they have the correct name....
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