Problem with multiple codes beginning with ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION in my Word doc instead

Zoeconnor

Report ID: 1340707482

I am working on a relatively long Word document with about 250 references in.

Laptop with Windows
Word version Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2402 Build 16.0.17328.20346) 64-bit
Zotero - just updated it. Now version 7.0.3 (64-bit)

This week whilst working on the document one isolated citation has been appearing in a long block of code starting with the ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM. I've tried to delete this multiple times but it just pops itself back in. So I left it.

Today the length of the document jumped up from about 12 pages to 180 as this error has happened to multiple but not all the references. I've tried the troubleshooting things on this page but have run out of time to try to delete various bits and see if it corrects itself. https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/debugging_broken_documents

Please advise asap - I am supposed to be submitting this to a deadline today!! It is unusable currently as a document. The length of the document is make word struggle to deal with it.

dstillman

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

Zoeconnor

Thanks i have also read through the info about the field codes on that link. Ticking and unticking that box makes no difference.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u10544723/u99kl9s7imjxfy683las.jpg

dstillman

That's the global setting. Individual fields can also be toggled. The page gives the shortcut key for toggling all field codes within a document.

Zoeconnor

Yes. To clarify. I have tried all of these things before raising a help ticket.
I have been unable to submit my piece of work by my deadline because of this. I need some help fixing the document urgently please. How do I access Zotero help? I am a premium subscriber. I am worrying about continuing my use of Zotero due to this issue. I may need to look elsewhere. I can’t recommend Zotero to anyone based on this issue. And lack of support.

damnation

dstillman is the head developer of Zotero. More personalised support you cannot ask for. Step by step. I'm sure he'll suggest something to troubleshoot the issue further.

adomasven

@Zoeconnor If you select the citation that is giving you issues, and right click it, is there a "Toggle Field Codes" option? Does it fix the issue if you click it?

Zoeconnor

I’m very confused by this support process. I don’t know if the people replying to it or not have access to the emails I have sent to support containing the word document and giving more detail about what I have tried.
I have no idea if the people replying on here are employees of Zotero or users.
I have not had replies to my emails to Zotero. I don’t know what the expected reply time should be but I am very disappointed with this and it is causing me incredible amounts of stress.
But yes. All these have been tried. My laptop is struggling to manage the document now as it is so big and a good six months work seems wasted as I now have an unusable document and have missed an important deadline that may significantly affect my career.

tim820

You can see the two developers you are interacting with (@dstillman and @adomasven) listed below (although their forum user names would be helpful there, as would a visible designation in this forum). The user community also has much applied expertise (and if they rarely say anything wrong the devs will correct it quickly).
https://www.zotero.org/support/credits_and_acknowledgments

By far the best (and only) course is to respond to their messages here, listing clearly the exact steps that you took and exactly what happened. *Only* if the developers require anything to be sent to them by email will they request it. That's how support works (generally much better than other software where the designated support person didn't write the software, and may or may not be the best person to solve your problem quickly).
https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_support

dstillman

@Zoeconnor: I understand you're frustrated, but to help you, we really need you to work with us and respond to what we say, not just complain about the support process.

This is where all support happens, as we make clear throughout the site, and you're getting direct help from two Zotero developers. We help thousands of people a year here, usually rather efficiently. We don't look at random documents sent to us via email. You can mention in your forum thread you sent a file via email, but generally speaking, if we need something, we'll ask for it.

Zotero uses standard Word fields for citations, like almost every other citation manager that integrates with Word. When these codes appear in the document, it's almost always just a display issue in Word, which is why I linked you to our standard support page that explains the various ways to toggle them. You responded with a screenshot about only one of the various mentioned methods, and then when I attempted to clarify that there were other methods, you started complaining about our "lack of support". You still haven't answered Adomas's very straightforward question about what happens when you right-click on one of the citations.

But we've gone ahead and found the document you sent. A large section of field codes has somehow been converted to plain text. (So the answer to what happens when right-clicking one of the citations would be that "Toggle Field Codes" doesn't appear. That's what we've needed to know this entire thread.) @adomasven may be able to better say what happened here — it looks you may have originally started this document with Mendeley, so something may have gone wrong in the conversion to Zotero citations, or this could be some sort of Word bug.

In any case, you should be able to delete the large section of field codes and reinsert any necessary citations. Adomas may be able to say more.

adomasven

@Zoeconnor The citations in your document got corrupt. I don't think we have seen something like this before. It could be a bug in Word, perhaps caused by migration from Mendeley or some interaction with a Word feature such as track changes.

You can try to restore your document from a backup by using the Word's combine document revisions feature, if you have a recent backup that doesn't have this corruption.

Otherwise you will have to manually fix your document. It appears there are 71 instances of corrupt citations in your document. Open the Advanced Find dialog, type ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION, then press Find Next, and finally Reading Highlight -> Highlight All. Now type in } (, Find Next and once again Reading Highlight -> Highlight All.

The ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION correspond to the beginning of the corruption, and } ( to the end. You will have to remove and reinsert those citations. This will highlight 70 of the beginnings of the corruption and 68 of the ends. You should look for the final 3 corrupted parts manually in your document.

Zoeconnor

Thankyou