Citation problems with updated document
I wrote my doctoral thesis in OpenOffice using Zotero 1. Since then I've written another book using Zotero 2 and have the most up-to-date OOo plug-in. I'm now editing my thesis as a book. Trying to insert a new citation I was told I had to specify my document preferences, and was offered the choice of two formats: stable-but-can't-be-saved-as-Word and savable-as-Word-but-less-stable. My publishers will need it in Word so I chose that -- even though that will mess up the citations I already have in a few footnotes.
It's letting me insert new citations, but a. they're not shown highlighted, as the old ones are, and b. the paragraph the new citation is in becomes single-spaced rather than the 1-1/2 spaced it was before.
This all seems a bit flakey, and I'm concerned for the integrity of my work. Any advice?
It's letting me insert new citations, but a. they're not shown highlighted, as the old ones are, and b. the paragraph the new citation is in becomes single-spaced rather than the 1-1/2 spaced it was before.
This all seems a bit flakey, and I'm concerned for the integrity of my work. Any advice?
Bookmarks are nor highlighted (that's one of the reasons they're easier to corrupt) and the formatting issue has always been the case, here for a solution/workaround.
http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/word_default_font
Since your publisher probably does not need to edit your citations using Zotero, you can actually continue to compose in ODT format and use fields, as you prefer doing. Just remove field codes and save to DOC or DOCX when you're done whenever you submit the manuscript to the publisher. The citations will still display correctly; your editor just won't be able to interact with them using the Zotero integration plugin.
I'm not sure what's causing the spacing issue-- hopefully someone else can chip in on that one. Is that only when you use bookmarks (Word-compatible citations)?
Finally, the word processor integration has improved and become more stable since Zotero 1.0 and 2.0, so your work is at least as safe as it was before. And, as always, you have the complete support of the forums and developers for troubleshooting if problems do arise. You may actually want to explore moving to Zotero 2.1, which is about to come out of its long beta, and which has somewhat improved word processor integration (and is more likely to receive developer attention and fixes if you run into any actual defects).
I changed to bookmarks because I (mis?)understood the document preferences choice to say that if I used reference marks I wouldn't be able to save it in Word when I was ready to send it to my publishers, but you're saying I can do so, Adam -- so would it make sense to switch back to reference marks, or might that cause further trouble? (Was the actual meaning that with bookmarks the citations themselves can be edited in both OOo and Word? If so, that wasn't clear.)
Odd that I've never met the formatting problem before. The problem with changing the default is that (I think) this would be for all my documents, not just for this one, and most of what I write is single-spaced. I think I'll stick with the problem and just reformat any para that gets changed.
ajlyon: I'm always loath to use beta s/w, in case I trip over an unfixed or even unreported glitch (back in my programming days 20+ years ago we called them "undocumented features"!). I'm currently using 2.0.9; do you think the advantages of moving to 2.1 would outweigh the possible risks? (I'm not asking for guarantees, just an opinion.) Oh, and I don't understand "Just remove field codes"; is that something I'd need to do myself, or would saving as .doc do it?
Thanks again for your help.
David
See http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3704/ for information on removing field codes. If you continue to write in ODT, saving the document as DOC should be sufficient to make sure the citations aren't mangled by your publisher.
On removing field codes: the reason I hadn't met this issue before is that my thesis went to the examiners in printed form (though I sent it to OUP as a Word file) -- and with the other book I just used Zotero to create the bibliography, not for in-text citations.
Whichever format I use I'll output it in Word, and any copy-editing by the publisher will be in Word. I'll then turn it back to OOo for any final editing -- and at that stage I may need to edit or add citations, so will need them still to exist -- so that may be the factor that determines whether I should use bookmarks or reference marks. But whichever I use, do I lose anything when I switch from one to the other?
I don't know when FF4 will arrive, but I'll take a leap of faith and move to Zotero 2.1 now.
Incidentally, I don't know if you two are Zotero developers or expert users -- but it's so vastly preferable to the clunky EndNote I used when I first started working on my thesis that I've been recommending it to every academic and non-fiction author I know since I first came across it. Thank you Zotero!
I haven't risked changing to Zotero 2.1 in case that makes things worse -- unless the screen full of errors is one of the things it fixes...
Windows 7, 64-bit, LibreOffice 3.3.0, Firefox 3.6.13
thanks!
Can you replicate this with an empty document? I.e. star an empty document in LO/RefMarks insert two citations, then "convert" to bookmarks.
And no, I've never seen this before.
As made with Refmarks:
==============================================
Here is a document with a reference1 to something.
1. Anderson, J.R. et al. A Computational Framework for Ultrastructural Mapping of Neural Circuitry. PLoS Biology 7, e74 EP - (2009).
==============================================
After converting to Bookmarks (gear icon / bookmarks radio button / OK button):
==============================================
Here is a document with a reference1
1
1
1
1something.
{Citation}
==============================================
PS the "1"s are all superscript after conversion, the first one can be edited as normal for a citation, if I try to edit the others another "1" appears and then blinks out & that's it, except for the third "1", if I try to edit that it starts spewing out more "1"s (some superscript some not) and eating more text.
Here's a screenshot of the error message I get repeatedly
http://img193.imageshack.us/i/screenshotggx.png/
no error is triggered in Zotero itself.
Simon is currently revamping the Ooo/Lo integration - it would be nice if the new version didn't have this problem, which make co-authoring with word users even harder.
So I have a 100,000-word document with hundreds of old reference mark citations and a few new bookmark citations. But if I try to edit a reference mark, to change the cited pages for example, I get a horrible metallic thud sound and the message "You must place the cursor in a Zotero citation to edit it." Of course it is -- but Zotero/OOo doesn't seem to recognise it. Does this mean that I shall have to reinsert any old citation I need to edit as a bookmark? And a far more serious consequence: when I come to generate a new bibliography will Zotero recognise both reference marks and bookmarks? Or will it generate a bibliography of just half a dozen items?
As I've also said, I haven't risked changing to Zotero 2.1 in case that makes things worse. But would it be more likely to make things better?
I'm not quite sure how you got where you are, but a document is either/or.
just to clarify, if you, at any point in time, saved a document with reference marks as .doc, those no longer exist as Zotero citations and there is no way to bring them back (except a back-up of the document prior to saving it as .doc)
edit: And in case of that latter scenario (and this is what this sound like) the bibliography will consist only of the newly added items. Zotero doesn't know that there are any others.
The old citations are nicely highlighted, and when I hover the cursor over them they tell me that they're reference citation items, but I can't edit them; the new citations aren't highlighted, don't say anything when I hover the cursor, but I can edit them. So I do have both types in the document.
Yes, I saved the document as a .doc file to send to OUP -- but I'm editing the OOo file, not the .doc file.
Fortunately I generated a bibliography when I completed my thesis, and this is now at the end of the document, so that situation isn't as dire as it might have been; I'll just have to remember which new titles I've added to the database and manually type them into the bibliography -- a pain, but not a major one.
Simon: I'm using OOo 3.30, downloaded direct from OOo, with the add-on Zotero OpenOffice Integration 3.0. Someone (Adam?) told me a while ago that I might be experiencing problems because between originally writing the thesis and now editing it I went from the Zotero-1.oxt add-on to 3.0 (via version 2, but my thesis doesn't know that).
I think I'm just going to have to muddle through with this book -- If I need to edit an old (reference) citation I'll just create a new (bookmark) one instead -- and hope that when I eventually save it as .doc to send to my publishers, all the citations, of both types, will remain in the text. (Do I need to Remove Field Codes first, or does saving as .doc do that anyway?)
And the next book I'll start from scratch with reference marks -- and with Zotero 2.1.
**Edit: You both responded again while I was writing this -- but I think it still stands.