The file you are trying to copy “sdarticle.pdf” already exists. Not to mention that every time I add a file to that folder with a similar name, I get this fantastic message: In fact, I notice the lack of something: meaningful file names.Īs you can see in the image above, the file names are not very explanatory and whenever I have to pick a file to send to a colleague or open it directly for some reason, it becomes a guess-the-mystery-file name game. My references and documents are all nice and organized within Mendeley Desktop and accessible online but when I look at the files on my computer, I notice something. So we now have a web importer for online retrieval and an automated watch folder.
Just drop or download your PDF documents into your watched folder and Mendeley will do it’s thing (I mean auto-extract it’s metadata and add it to your library!).
You can add one file at a time, a full folder in one go or even make a specific “Watched” folder.Ī “Watched” folder is basically a folder that Mendeley keeps an eye on for any new files and automatically imports new documents with minimal interaction on your behalf. There are multiple ways to import files from your hard drive directly into Mendeley Desktop. That’s all good, but what about papers that you already have on your computer spread about in different folders or hard drives? In previous posts I’ve mentioned Mendeley’s web importer, which helps retrieve papers directly to your Mendeley Web account. So anything that can cut back this strain of accessing and organizing research papers is most welcome. Looking for the right keywords, opening each relevant result into a new tab, downloading each paper of interest, finding the cryptically named PDF file and then adding it to your library in an organized fashion (phew).
If you are unable to install the Mendeley plug-in in Word (Mendeley Cite-O-Matic or Mendeley Cite), it is possible to use the built-in citation tool within Word to insert references from your Mendeley Web library.įirst export your references from your Mendeley Web Library: