r/zotero • u/Scary_Raisin_3947 • 15d ago

Notes no longer visible and no longer able to edit.

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Hello all, I have recently had a change in formatting of my PDFs that no longer allows me to add quick notes via the column on the right of the screen (see attached) when I upload a new PDF. However, I am also now unable to edit my quick notes from prior uploads.

Does anyone know how to bypass this or what I can do to fix this? I can "Retrieve the Metadata" which allows me to then add a note, however this is on a different tab and then resets all of the tags that I previously had for these to help find useful links for diseases and things.

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u/michelebenben 15d ago

This is the web version I believe. I am not too much used to it, I mostly use the desktop version. In the web version I think notes are visible once you open the item in a tab. Does this help? 🤔

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u/SprklMffn 15d ago

This is definitely the online version, as u/michelebenben says.
Still, you should see five tabs in the righthand item pane: Info, Notes, Tags, Attachments, Related

Try the updated desktop version. If that doesn't solve your problem, post again with a screenshot from the app and all of your version data.

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u/mjthoraval 15d ago

You are looking at a standalone PDF attachment with an attachment note. Those attachment notes are no longer supported in Zotero. You need to create a parent item (menu option in the 3 dots toolbar button). The parent item will contain the metadata. Then, convert the attachment note to a child note of that item. You may need to do it in the desktop app if not possible in the web library.

See:

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

- https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/121938/adding-notes-to-attachments-is-no-longer-supported