diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 00e768a..b4f1756 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ Imports:
     tibble,
     tidyr,
     rlang
-RoxygenNote: 7.2.3
+RoxygenNote: 7.3.1
 Suggests:
     testthat,
     knitr,
diff --git a/R/epmc_search.r b/R/epmc_search.r
index 20e929c..b9c503d 100644
--- a/R/epmc_search.r
+++ b/R/epmc_search.r
@@ -104,7 +104,10 @@ epmc_search <- function(query = NULL,
   hits <- epmc_hits(query, synonym = synonym)
   if (hits == 0) {
     message("There are no results matching your query")
-    md <- NULL
+    # return an empty tibble
+    md <- tibble::tibble()
+    # populate the hit_count attribute even with zero results
+    attr(md, "hit_count") <- hits
   } else {
     limit <- as.integer(limit)
     limit <- ifelse(hits <= limit, hits, limit)
diff --git a/docs/.DS_Store b/docs/.DS_Store
index b4f3741..1339fb4 100644
Binary files a/docs/.DS_Store and b/docs/.DS_Store differ
diff --git a/man/epmc_annotations_by_id.Rd b/man/epmc_annotations_by_id.Rd
index 4d29040..80df5a3 100644
--- a/man/epmc_annotations_by_id.Rd
+++ b/man/epmc_annotations_by_id.Rd
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@ full-text articles.
 }
 \examples{
 \dontrun{
-  annotations_by_id("MED:28585529")
+  epmc_annotations_by_id("MED:28585529")
   # multiple ids
-  annotations_by_id(c("MED:28585529", "PMC:PMC1664601"))
+  epmc_annotations_by_id(c("MED:28585529", "PMC:PMC1664601"))
 }
 }
diff --git a/man/epmc_ftxt.Rd b/man/epmc_ftxt.Rd
index 3923c69..487e2d8 100644
--- a/man/epmc_ftxt.Rd
+++ b/man/epmc_ftxt.Rd
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 % Please edit documentation in R/epmc_ftxt.r
 \name{epmc_ftxt}
 \alias{epmc_ftxt}
-\title{Fetch Europe PMC full texts}
+\title{Fetch Europe PMC full text}
 \usage{
 epmc_ftxt(ext_id = NULL)
 }
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ All full text publications have external IDs starting 'PMC_'}
 xml_document
 }
 \description{
-This function loads full texts into R. Full texts are in XML format and are
+This function loads one full text into R. Full text is in XML format and is
 only provided for the Open Access subset of Europe PMC.
 }
 \examples{
diff --git a/man/europepmc.Rd b/man/europepmc.Rd
index 3027064..86d065d 100644
--- a/man/europepmc.Rd
+++ b/man/europepmc.Rd
@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@
 % Please edit documentation in R/europepmc.r
 \docType{package}
 \name{europepmc}
-\alias{europepmc}
 \alias{europepmc-package}
+\alias{europepmc}
 \title{europepmc - an R client for the Europe PMC RESTful article API}
 \description{
 What is europepmc?:
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test_epmc_db.r b/tests/testthat/test_epmc_db.r
index 750abe9..83e231c 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test_epmc_db.r
+++ b/tests/testthat/test_epmc_db.r
@@ -2,7 +2,10 @@ context("testing epmc_db")
 
 test_that("epmc_db returns", {
   skip_on_cran()
-  a <- epmc_db("12368864", db = "uniprot", limit = 50)
+  # as of July 2024, this result only returns 10 results, so limit must
+  # be <= that
+  a_limit <- 7
+  a <- epmc_db("12368864", db = "uniprot", limit = a_limit)
   b <- epmc_db("25249410", db = "embl")
   c <- epmc_db("14756321", db = "uniprot")
   d <- epmc_db("11805837", db = "pride")
@@ -31,7 +34,7 @@ test_that("epmc_db returns", {
 
 
 
-  expect_equal(nrow(a), 50)
+  expect_equal(nrow(a), a_limit)
 
   # fails correctly
   expect_error(epmc_db("14756321"), "Please restrict reponse to a database")
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test_epmc_search.r b/tests/testthat/test_epmc_search.r
index 4c59cf2..8ef0d0e 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test_epmc_search.r
+++ b/tests/testthat/test_epmc_search.r
@@ -31,19 +31,19 @@ test_that("epmc_search returns", {
   expect_is(k, "list")
   expect_is(l, "data.frame")
 
-  #are diminsions correct?
+  # are dimensions correct?
   expect_equal(nrow(e), 250)
   expect_equal(ncol(e), 4)
   expect_equal(nrow(f), 25)
   expect_equal(nrow(h), 100)
   expect_equal(length(i), 125)
+  expect_equal(nrow(j), 0)
   expect_equal(nrow(l), 100)
 
 
   # fails correctly
   expect_message(epmc_search("123haha"),
                  "There are no results matching your query")
-  expect_null(j)
   expect_error(epmc_search(query = "malaria", limit = TRUE))
   expect_error(epmc_search(query = "malaria", verbose = "kdk"))
   expect_error(epmc_search(query = "malaria", synonym = "yes"))