I expect to see the paper linked by the reference. I donāt know what Paperpile will show me (pdf? paperpile app? google doc? website of the paper?). But I do expect to see something, and instead I get an error message.
Question 1: How do I enable expected behavior?
Question 2: When I share this Word file with my coauthor, how can I enable the expected behavior for them, too?
Those links are essentially for internal use; they link to the metadata which we use to format the references and are how we enable reference management in Windows. When accessed from within a Google Doc, they allow the user to view and edit the metadata in order to manage the references. However, when accessed from outside the document we block said access. We may update that page to show more relevant information, but at the moment we simply block it to prevent citation tampering by people whom you have shared a PDF or Word document with.
OK, I think Iām starting to understand the Paperpile developerās perspective on this issue.
You might consider the userās perspective.
The error message is uninformative for me and my coauthors. When my coauthor asked āWhy am I getting this error?ā I was not able to give any meaningful answer. Indeed, I was frustrated that I couldnāt even access my own references. This unexpected behavior convinced me to stop using Paperpile when I share Word documents with collaborators. In my network, Word is the software most people are comfortable with, so I need to accommodate.
Let me propose a new error message that might be informative for users:
Sorry, this link only works when accessed from a Google Doc with the Paperpile extension installed. It is not meant to be accessed anywhere else. Please contact the author of the document an ask them for access to the original Google Doc file. Then make sure you install the Paperpile extension. Finally, try clicking the link in the Google Doc.
If youāre interested, Iād be happy to give my criticism for any other message youād like to propose to show users.
Hi, Jason. I recently paid for a 1 yr subscription to Paperpile. I am having the same issue as OP, but from within the google doc (of which I am the owner). I click on a citation that Iāve added, then I click on the paperpile citation link that pops up; when I follow the link I get an error page saying, āYou cannot view or change the references of this documentā. I have the Chrome extension installed and active.
How do I view info for the citations I added? Thanks!
Try restarting the extension by going to More tools --> Extensions, in the Chrome menu, then switch the Paperpile extension off, then on again, then reload your docs tab.
You should be seeing this when placing the cursor in a citation:
To open that reference in your library, click edit, then on the blue bubble, then on Open in Paperpile:
To view all references in the document, go to Paperpile --> View all References, in the Google Docs menu.
I downloaded a .pdf of my document and posted it to an online pre-print server. When anyone clicks on a citation now it takes them to this error page. Is there any way to save a .pdf of the document such that these links are disabled altogether? (store in-text citations as plain text instead of links to broken webpage).
To be truth, I was not even trying to edit the metadata, I was just trying to see the reference, something that is not easy with the add-on. I need to find again the reference in the search field to be able to access its website. It would be nice if the website was available directly as one of the options when clicking on the reference.
Try restarting the extension by going to More tools ā> Extensions, in the Chrome menu, then switch the Paperpile extension off, then on again, then reload your docs tab.
I followed the instructions above from @jason 's post, but this is what I see:
This is happening to me too. This must be a bugā¦ And it renders the whole Google-Doc integration close to useless.
Was there some recent change to this? The interface looks different now (as in picks above) and nearly all information available is useless (given that the link always returns an error, even when accessed by me from within my own doc using my own browser with the paperpile extension activated).
I have tried turning extension on/off, reinstalling the extension, logging off and back on my chrome. Still works as in the pictures above - no way of opening in Paperpile or even adding/removing citations in a multi-citation (!!). What is the fix to this?
Iāve been communicating with Vicente at Paperpile about this exact thing for weeks! Everything the posters above said has been happening to me. I have all the same questions-- essentially what do I do with these non-working links? All of my citations and references have a link which results in a frowning face and error message. This is not going over well with my readers and I need to do something to clean it up. I hate to do a select-all and clear all hyperlinks because there are useful ones mixed in, and hand-editing several hundred links is not appealing to me for obvious reasons.
Iām afraid Iām still stuck on this problem. If anyone has a solution, Iād love to know it!
