How to Add and Manage Full-Text PDFs in Rayyan – Rayyan Help Center

You can add a PDF to Rayyan in two ways: upload it as a new reference, or attach it to a reference that's already in your review. On paid plans, Auto match and Auto-Retrieve can pair PDFs with references for you.

Before you begin The review Owner, Review Admins, and Collaborators can upload and attach PDFs. Each PDF can be up to 10 MB. You can upload up to 10 files at a time in a review, or up to 20 at a time in My Library. For other file types and limits, see How to Import References into Rayyan.

Two ways to add a PDF

Option	What happens	Use it when
Upload as a new reference	Rayyan reads the DOI in the PDF, creates a reference with its citation details, and attaches the PDF to it.	You have the PDF, but the reference isn't in your review yet.
Attach to an existing reference	The PDF is linked to a reference already in your review. The citation details don't change.	The reference is in your review and you want its full text.

Note PDFs you upload as new references are listed as one file under Imported references in Review data, and every PDF you add this way later goes into the same file. You can delete that whole file, but not a single reference in it.

Upload a PDF as a new reference

In the Review data tab, click Add References.
Choose From my device or From my library, then pick the PDF.
Rayyan looks for a readable DOI in the file and fills in the citation details.
The new reference appears in your review with the PDF already attached.

Common issue If the new reference doesn't match your PDF, or no details are found: Rayyan uses the first DOI it can read, so a PDF whose reference list includes other DOIs can produce the wrong record. If nothing is found, the DOI may be missing, unreadable, or from an article that isn't publicly available. In either case, add the reference in a reference manager such as Zotero, export it as an RIS file, import it into Rayyan, and then attach the PDF to it.

Attach a PDF to one reference

You can attach a PDF in Review data, Screening, Full text screening, Data Extraction, and Risk of Bias.

Select the reference and click Attach PDF.
Choose From my device or From my library, and pick the file.

In Full text screening, the Attach icon in the reference's row opens the file picker straight away.

Attach PDFs to several references at once

Note The review Owner, Review Admins, and Collaborators can attach PDFs in bulk. Auto match requires a paid plan. On the Free plan, you can select up to 10 references at a time and assign each PDF yourself.

Select the references using the checkboxes.
Click Attach PDF in the toolbar and choose where your files are: your device or My Library.
Pick your PDFs. From your device, your computer's file browser opens: select the files and click Open. From My Library, the Attach PDF from your library window opens: select the PDFs and click Next.
Click Auto match to pair them automatically (paid plans), or assign each PDF to its reference yourself.
Click Attach.

Best practice Use short, consistent file names, such as the first author's last name and the year (Smith2023.pdf). Short names upload more reliably and make manual matching faster.

How Auto match and Auto-Retrieve pair PDFs

Both tools pair a PDF with a reference using the DOI inside the PDF. The file name doesn't affect the match. PDFs Rayyan can't read, such as scanned copies, need to be assigned yourself.

Retrieve PDFs from My Library automatically

Auto-Retrieve looks in My Library for PDFs that match the references in Full text screening and attaches them for you. It only works on references that don't have a PDF yet, so a PDF you've already attached is never replaced.

Note Auto-Retrieve requires a paid plan.

Upload your PDFs to My Library.
Open Full text screening.
Click Auto Retrieve PDF, then click Continue. Rayyan searches My Library in the background and lets you know when it's done.

You can attach any remaining PDFs yourself.

View, remove, or replace a PDF

View: click the reference's title, then click PDF at the top of the details.
Remove: scroll down within the reference's details to the PDF full-text attachment, click the trash icon next to the file name, and click Delete.
Replace: remove the PDF, then attach the right one.

Continue to: How to Use My Library in Rayyan