Error Message while opening Word and Zotero

Lee1986

Hi Guys,

I am using Zotero for a research-projekt (in german) and I receive the following error-message every time I restart Word with the plug-in and Zotero:
"You have modified this citation since zotero generated it. do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates? Clicking yes will prevent zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citations, switch styles, or modify the reference to which it refers. Clicking no will erase your changes."

I have to click on "yes" a hundred times and I definetly do NOT want any of my modified citations to be changed. What can I do to:

1. Turn of these checks every time I restart Word/Zotero?
2. Make sure, my modifications in the citations will never be changed?
3. Still keep the link between my (modified) citations and the Bibliography at the end of the paper?

In the german version of zotero there is a checkbox in the Word-Plugin under document-preferences that says "Automatisch Zitationen aktualisieren" which means something like "update citations automatically" but I am not shure if this is the box I should uncheck and I do not want to change anything else like the general link between the citations and the Bibliographie for example!

Thanks a lot for your help!
Lee

dstillman

Why are you making so many manual modifications to citations? If you're making that many manual changes, you're almost certainly doing something wrong — that's not how Zotero or any other similar citation manager is meant to be used. See Customizing Cites for the correct way to make changes to item data and citations.

If you really want to make that many manual changes, you'll need to either say Yes for every citation you change or unlink citations and stop using Zotero in this document. There's no chance we'll offer an option to turn this warning off — the whole point of using the word processor plugin is to let it keep your citations updated and correct.

Lee1986

Thanks for the answer! I do make these changes in line / in the document instead of clicking me through all the windows of the plugin because I need individualized citations in most cases. And the benefit of using Zotero (saving time!) is almost lost if I have to click myself through all these windows every time I want an individualized citation in my paper...

What happens if I keep the link between the citations and the Bibliography but uncheck the box "update citations automatically"?

dstillman

That setting has nothing to do with modified citations.

Again, the plugin just isn't meant to be used the way you're using it, and you're breaking core functionality of the plugin by doing so. Citations are obviously meant to be customized, and there are fast ways of adding page numbers and accessing the popup while entering citations — you can read through the section I linked to for more. But we can't help further with the way you're using the plugin.

Lee1986

Ok, thanks for the feedback!

dstillman

See also Keyboard Commands on that page.