Pasting bibliographic item into Word aligns too far left and different format

DonnaCoxBaker

Word 365, Zotero 6.0.27, Windows 11
When I copy a single Zotero item's reference--bibliography format--to add to a bibliography in Microsoft Word, it pastes half an inch to the left and in a different format from the line it's pasted to. I can then copy and paste the format of the lines above to get the correct font, margins, and spacing between paragraphs. But then I lose the italics and hyperlink that were pasted in. I can instead paste it to accept the format it's being pasted into, but again, I lose the italics and hyperlink. Is there a way copy this out of Zotero with formatting that will accept the style of the paragraph into which it's pasted, without losing the italics of the title and the URL link?

Here's what a new item, pasted at the bottom of the bibliography looked like:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oFKJkzrmhp-yu5pVpNkof31NXzFFdqq-/view?usp=sharing

adamsmith

This is a long known issue with how content in HTML in the clipboard interact with word processors in general and MS Word in particular.
For Word, you can use the right-click "Merge formatting" paste option for decent results (i.e. preserved formatting, though line spacing and hanging indents will get lost). For optimal results, use the Word add-on or safe to RTF and open in Word.

DonnaCoxBaker

Thanks, Adam. Would it be possible to add a button to the plugin that pastes the reference properly, so that the Zotero item doesn't have to be searched for again in these cases?

adamsmith

As such, no.
I think a button in the plugin that cites the item currently selected in Zotero is a good idea (but I don't speak for the dev team, who might disagree).

But a button that pastes a bib entry in the add-on would be a conceptual mess.

DonnaCoxBaker

That would be even better--grabbing the item currently selected in Zotero and creating the biblio entry. It would even save the extra step of telling Zotero to make a bibliography entry on the Zotero side.