Help: in-text citations active but can't edit/add new ones

sabinaschnell

The in-text Zotero citations are active in Word (grey if I hover over them, you can see citation box) but when try to add/edit citation it opens a new box, rather than adding to the old one.

dstillman

grey if I hover over them, you can see citation box

I'm not sure what you mean by "citation box".

But make sure you've actually closed the citation dialog before clicking Add/Edit Citation. If the citation dialog was already open in the background, clicking Add/Edit Citation would just bring it to the front, not open it for the current citation.

In general, you should just restart Zotero and try again, and if you're still having trouble, explain exactly what you're doing and what's happening.

adamsmith

As I understand this, the quick format citation bar comes up empty when editing citations (rather than showing the existing ones).
Does this work correctly in a new document?

dstillman

As I understand this, the quick format citation bar comes up empty when editing citations (rather than showing the existing ones).

Right, but that's what I meant — if the citation dialog is already open and empty in the background, clicking Add/Edit Citation again will just bring the empty dialog to the front. @sabinaschnell would have to close it and click it again after clicking on the citation they wanted to edit.

sabinaschnell

By citation box I mean the in-text fields where the references are. I do not know exactly what the technical term is, if you have a better one please let me know.

This is how it looks in text "(Fox, 2015)". If I click on it and then click "add/edit citation" it opens the dialogue box for adding/editing citations in Zotero, but the dialogue box does not include the existing citation I am trying to add to. And instead of adding to the existing citation it inserts the new reference as a new citation. Then it looks like this "(Fox, 2015(Banerjee, 1997))".

And no, the citation dialogue was not already open and empty in the background. And yes, I restarted Zotero, Word, and the computer, did not make any difference. I am not quite that daft lol.

dstillman

And instead of adding to the existing citation it inserts the new reference as a new citation. Then it looks like this "(Fox, 2015(Banerjee, 1997))".

Unfortunately this likely means you (or someone else who saved the document) broke the citations:

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected

The gray highlight doesn’t guarantee that they’re still valid citations.

sabinaschnell

Hm, but I didn't do anything to it and nobody else has access. Just haven't opened it for a while.

dstillman

If you send the document (or an excerpt) to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread, we can take a look, but you clearly no longer have active Zotero annotations, which would only happen for the reasons in the linked page.

sabinaschnell

thank you, will do that!