It seems that the “page count” field should be automatically populated by the app - it would be easy enough to do, and save a lot of manual labour!
I’m not sure I follow @Dan_Hackley; page count should appear in the mobile app at the bottom of the screen. Could you share a screenshot or a few more details?
Hi,
I’m referring to the web app just now. See screenshot below; the “page count” field is unpopulated:
Thank you for the screenshot, @Dan_Hackley. If page count data is included in the PDF metadata, Paperpile should automatically pick it up, though this may depend on the reference type. To help us investigate, could you share a few examples of reference links where the page count isn’t being included?
Hi Suzanne,
I’m talking about the actual page count, not a metadata entry. So the number of pages that the document comprises.
Thanks for following up. To clarify: Paperpile does automatically populate the page count field—but only when that information is present in the metadata we can read (from the publisher’s database or the PDF itself).
If the page count doesn’t show up, it usually means the data wasn’t included in the source metadata or the PDF file. In those cases, the field will stay empty and needs to be added manually.
Thanks Suzanne. So I guess my question is - can’t Paperpile automatically populate the page count field, when that metadata doesn’t exist in the sources you mention? Can’t it just see how many pages there are, and add that number? Most apps (and operating systems) show the page count in the file details without needing any metadata.
Currently, Paperpile doesn’t use the number of pages directly from a PDF file for the “Page count” field, @Dan_Hackley. The “Page count” field in Paperpile is a bibliographic field, which is typically required for books and reports. For those reference types, we automatically populate it when that information is available in the metadata.
For journal articles and most other reference types, citation styles use a page range (e.g., pp. 123–137) rather than a total page count. That’s why you don’t usually see the PDF’s length reflected in the “Page count” field.
I can log your request for the option to display the total number of pages from attached PDFs on our internal feature tracker. One open question is how this would work when a reference has multiple PDFs; for example, an article with supplementary material. One possibility would be to show the page count for the main PDF only.
Thanks Suzanne! That makes sense. That would be great if you could add it as a feature, thanks!