LibreOffice: Bibligraphy does not update?
Status 2024/03/05. Issue is being tracked as https://github.com/zotero/zotero-libreoffice-integration/issues/76. See this comment.
A workaround exists: Create the bibliography at the bottom of the document and cut/paste it to the wanted location, see this comment.
Original Post. As of Libreoffice Writer 7.6 (on OpenSuse 15.3) and Zotero 6.30, I am observing, that bibliographies don't get updated, when making changes in the document, such as
- Adding new citations
- Changing the citation style
Demonstration: https://youtu.be/gI9BvUVy_Fs
Does anyone else experience this problem? Any solutions, I could try?
Maybe there is a log file that might indicate a failure of communication between the programs?
1. Insert one citation.
2. Insert bibliography at end of document.
3. Insert another citation above.
I thought I had tried this before, but maybe not?
Adding the bibliography at the beginning of the document continues to reproduce the issue (Debug ID D1363095153) for the workflow:
1. Insert two citations into empty document.
2. Insert bibliography before the document.
3. Insert more citations. Bibliography does not update.
4. Change bibliography style. Bibliography does not update.
I am pretty sure that in the past having the bibliography at or near the beginning of the document used to work.
There could be any number of other changes on the system since then though, that are not intentionally related to either LibreOffice or Zotero.
I experience the exact same issue, and for sometimes now. I'm using :
- Debian 12 (stable and testing, depending on which computer)
- LibreOffice 24.2.0.3 Flatpak (flathub)
- Zotero 6.0.30 unofficial Flatpak (flathub)
So it's probably neither your distro or the RPM version.
Do you use Zotero as flatpak too ? Because that might explain communication issues... If you do use Flatpak version, tell me and I'll try how it goes with the official tarball or the community maintained deb package ( https://www.zotero.org/support/installation ).
>>> which zotero
/home/kdbauer/my/prefix/zotero/bin/zotero
Libreoffice is installed using their release
LibreOffice_7.6.0_Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar.gz
Then it looks like this issue is happening across Linux distributions (OpenSuse 15.3, Debian 12), across LO and Zotero versions and app formats (official tarball for Zotero, rpm for LO, flatpak for both), and across CSL styles (using APA 7th and Vancouver).
I searched again and I found this topic from 2020 : https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/83966/bibliography-not-updating . I misunderstood what @dstillman said and tought he was pointing issues with Writer styles (he was talking about CSL styles), so I tried using another template than the one I always use when working with Zotero. And guess what: updating bibliography now works!
So it looks like that - in my case at least - the issue is related to the Writer styles or to the template document I use... Is it the same for you ?
The main symptom of my issue is:
1. When you create a bibliography, LO Writer should show a grey border around it to indicate it is a dynamic field.
2. When generating a broken bibliography, there's a grey border around one empty line, and then - outside of the border - the bibliography appears as regular (static) text. After editing the document, that grey border does not show at all anymore.
Download document with issue (shared for 180 days):
https://f2l.retzien.fr/dl/1725094069-42/Zotero_BiblIssue.odt
Symptom:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u9141529/tfffml7vjzbmhshexhgj.png
For a new document (Ctrl+N), the issue is equally present. Except when putting the bibliography at the end of the text. In that case, the section box appears and contains the bibliography, which will be updated as intended when inserting another citation.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u4098537/g0yolxabm14xkpm876z7.png
Workaround / Hint at Cause? The bibliography seems to be functional, if I create it first at the end of the document and then cut and paste it (Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V together with the heading) to the beginning of the document. Done this way, it updates as expected.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u4098537/hkjdu6ogcollo7gnb0t6.png
I came across this workaround due to @kirmaha mentioning the formatting highlights in their broken example.
So it looks like the issue is related to the section boundaries missing, when the bibliography is inserted anywhere other than the end of the file. I.e. the error does not occur when trying to update, but when first inserting the bibliography?
Attachment Files. See Google Drive. File names as in the screenshots.