Do you have a bunch of PDF documents on your computer stored in a folder somewhere? You can easily get those PDFs into your Zotero library!
1. With Zotero running, find the PDFs on your computer that you want to save into the Zotero library and drag and drop them into the relevant Zotero folder.
2. Once you have dragged and dropped the PDFs into your Zotero folder, you will see those PDFS appear in your library.
3. Next, select all your PDFs in the Zotero library, right click and select Retrieve Metadata for PDF. Zotero will run the PDF Metadata Retrieval in a pop-up box. Successfully retrieved items will display a green checkmark. Unsuccessful items will display a red X. When the retrieval is done processing, just click Close.
4. Some items will not retrieve any metadata and that is fine--you can just manually input the item information! You can tell it was unsuccessful if the item still has a PDF icon next to the title. Right click on those items and select Create Parent Item. Then, on the right hand window at the top, choose the item type and fill in the fields by simply clicking on them and typing. Any changes are saved automatically.
5. Now, all of your PDFs should live in your Zotero library. To access the PDF documents, just click on the tiny arrow on the left side of your article title. The PDF document will appear below the title.
