Add papers
Bring in PDFs, links, identifiers or records and understand what happens next.
In a project’s Library, select Add paper. You can upload a PDF, paste a link or identifier, search for a paper, enter a bibliographic record, or import a library file.
Choose an intake path
- Upload: use a PDF you already have. Distari keeps the original file and can process its text and summary.
- Link or ID: paste a DOI, arXiv ID or supported publisher link. Distari looks for metadata and a usable PDF. If no PDF is available, the result says so and keeps a metadata-only record.
- Search: find a work in external research sources, inspect it and add it to this project.
- Manual: add a paper whose metadata you know even when you have no file.
- Import file: choose a BibTeX, RIS or CSL-JSON bibliography and, if you have them, a ZIP of its PDFs. Review the preview before starting the import.
The app checks for a paper already in the project. When it finds a likely duplicate or a new version, review the match before choosing whether to reuse, link as a version, merge or keep both. An exact DOI cannot become two live records in the same project.
Decide when to process
Processing extracts text, enriches metadata, indexes passages and, when requested, produces a summary. It runs in the background. The paper shows queued, running, completed, failed or waiting-for-credits states. You can leave the page and return later.
You can turn processing off during intake and start it later. Costed processing is quoted using the project’s selected depth before it starts. If the PDF cannot be read, the bibliographic record is still useful in your library.
Move an existing library
Use File → Import library… or Add paper → Import file for a BibTeX, RIS or CSL-JSON export and an optional ZIP of PDFs, including a Mendeley export. Preview reports matched PDFs, likely duplicates and errors before any paper is added. The confirmed import runs in the background; you can close the dialog and return to its progress and per-entry report. Existing papers are skipped, and a row that fails does not stop the others. Use File → Import from Zotero… for a Zotero account or RDF export. The Zotero account path and some connected providers still need live provider validation; Integrations explains the current limits.
For a large import, start without automatic PDF processing if you want to review the papers before spending project credits.