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How to Add and Manage Full-Text PDFs in Rayyan

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In Rayyan, PDFs can be used in two different ways — uploaded as a reference, or attached to an existing reference. This article covers both workflows, upload limits, and how to use Auto-Retrieve to automate PDF matching.

How PDF uploading works in Rayyan

There are two distinct PDF workflows in Rayyan:

Workflow What it does When to use it
Upload as a reference Rayyan attempts to extract citation metadata (title, authors, abstract, DOI) from the PDF, creates a new reference record, and automatically attaches the PDF to it When you have a PDF but no reference record yet
Attach to an existing reference The PDF is linked to a reference already in your review — no metadata extraction occurs When the reference already exists and you want to add its full text

Upload a PDF as a reference

When you upload a PDF as a reference, Rayyan attempts to locate a DOI within the file and retrieve the citation metadata automatically.

  1. Go to your review and click Add References
  2. Select your PDF file from your device
  3. Rayyan scans the PDF for a readable DOI and retrieves the metadata if found
  4. A new reference record is created with the extracted citation data, and the PDF is attached to it automatically
Note Rayyan always captures the first DOI it is able to read in the file. If your PDF contains multiple DOIs — for example, a full-text article that includes a bibliography — Rayyan may extract the DOI of a cited reference rather than the article itself. If the created reference does not match your PDF, this is the most likely cause.
Common issue If Rayyan cannot extract metadata from your PDF, it means either the DOI was not present in a readable format, or the DOI belongs to a non-public or non-open-access article that Rayyan cannot retrieve. In this case, create the reference manually and attach the PDF to it.

Attach a PDF to an existing reference

You can attach a PDF to any reference already in your review at any stage of your workflow — Review Data, Screening, Full-Text Screening, Data Extraction, or Risk of Bias.

  1. Navigate to the stage where the reference appears
  2. Select the reference and click Attach PDF
  3. Choose From my device
  4. Select your PDF file and confirm

Attach PDFs to multiple references at once

To attach PDFs to several references in one session, select the articles first and then use the bulk upload flow.

  1. Select the references you want to attach PDFs to using the checkboxes
  2. Click Attach PDF in the toolbar and choose From my device
  3. Select your PDF files — use Select More to add additional files if needed
  4. Click Continue — Rayyan processes the files and opens the Match Articles to PDFs interface
  5. Each selected article is listed on the left with a Choose File dropdown on the right. Use the dropdown to manually assign the correct PDF to each article
  6. Optionally, click Auto Match — Rayyan compares the title embedded in each PDF against the selected articles and automatically matches any exact title matches
  7. Once all articles are matched, click Import to confirm and attach the PDFs
Best practice Name your PDF files to match the article title before uploading — for example, Prevention_of_Primary_Cytomegalovirus_Infection.pdf. This makes manual matching faster and significantly improves Auto Match accuracy.
Note Auto Match is available on paid plans. If Auto Match does not find a match, the status bar shows how many articles are remaining for manual matching — assign those manually using the Choose File dropdown before clicking Import.
Parameter Limit
File size per PDF Up to 10 MB per file
Files per upload (device) Up to 10 files at a time
Bulk selections — Free plan Up to 10 articles at once
Bulk selections — Paid plans More than 10 articles at once
Common issue If you receive a Bad Request error during upload, this is typically caused by server load or processing delays between Rayyan’s database and your browser. It is not always a problem with the file itself — wait a moment and try uploading again. Most cases resolve with a second attempt.

Auto-Retrieve PDF

Auto-Retrieve PDF is available on paid plans during the Full-Text Screening stage. It searches your My Library for PDFs that match the references you are currently reviewing and attaches them automatically.

  1. Upload your PDF files to My Library first
  2. Open the Full-Text Screening stage
  3. Click Auto Retrieve PDF
  4. Rayyan searches your library for matches and attaches any PDFs it finds to the corresponding references automatically
Note Auto Retrieve PDF is available on paid plans only. If you do not see the option in Full-Text Screening, check your current plan or upgrade here.

Continue to: How to Use My Library in Rayyan

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