Books have different structure in new zotero and now citing them prevents successful latex

etownsen

I have two computers, and one has "new" Zotero (7.0.11 (64-bit)) and one has an older version (its at work, so I don't know the version, but it was before the look changed). I am cloud syncing my library, so they should both have all the same entries. When I'm at work and I export my library to a .bib file and latex my document, it works. I'm using TeXworks and again, its at work so I don't know the version. However at home with TeXworks version 0.6.8 (Miktex 24.1) I can successfully latex my document as long as I don't export a new .bib file. If I use the new Zotero to export a .bib file, then compiling my document results in errors. I looked at the differences between the entries that cause errors.

Here is an entry from old zotero that works:
@book{Rivas2012,
title = {Open Quantum Systems: An Introduction},
shorttitle = {Open {{Quantum Systems}}},
author = {Rivas, {\'A}ngel and Huelga, Susana F.},
year = {2012},
series = {{{SpringerBriefs}} in {{Physics}}},
publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
address = {Berlin Heidelberg},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-23354-8},
url = {https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783642233531},
urldate = {2021-06-03},
abstract = {In this...},
isbn = {978-3-642-23353-1},
langid = {english},
file = {C\:\\Users\\etownsen\\Zotero\\storage\\6LPZPFVK\\Rivas and Huelga - 2012 - Open Quantum Systems An Introduction.pdf;C\:\\Users\\etownsen\\Zotero\\storage\\LYY4325S\\9783642233531.html}
}

Here is an entry from new zotero that doesn't work:
@book{Rivas2012,
address = {Berlin Heidelberg},
series = {{SpringerBriefs} in {Physics}},
title = {Open quantum systems: an introduction},
isbn = {978-3-642-23353-1},
shorttitle = {Open {Quantum} {Systems}},
url = {https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783642233531},
abstract = {In this...},
language = {en},
urldate = {2021-06-03},
publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
author = {Rivas, Ángel and Huelga, Susana F.},
year = {2012},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-23354-8},
file = {Snapshot:C\:\\Users\\etownsen\\Zotero\\storage\\LYY4325S\\9783642233531.html:text/html;Submitted Version:C\:\\Users\\etownsen\\Zotero\\storage\\6LPZPFVK\\Rivas and Huelga - 2012 - Open Quantum Systems An Introduction.pdf:application/pdf},
}

The error I get is:
! LaTeX Error: Invalid UTF-8 byte sequence (�.).

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H for immediate help.
...

l.66 {Huelga}},\ }
\href {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23354-8}
?

One difference I notice (suggested by the nature of the error) is how the special character in the 2nd author's name is treated. However if I only replace the `Angel with {\'A}ngel the book still doesn't work, and I instead get the error:
! Not loaded.
\selectlanguage ...ing it}\errmessage {Not loaded}

l.68 introduction}}}}
,\ {SpringerBriefs} in {Physics}\ (\bibinfo {publisher}

?


The other reference that doesn't work properly looks like this in the new Zotero:

@book{Breuer2002,
title = {The theory of open quantum systems},
isbn = {978-0-19-852063-4},
abstract = {This book...},
language = {en},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
author = {Breuer, Heinz-Peter and Petruccione, Francesco},
year = {2002},
keywords = {Science / Physics / Quantum Theory, Science / Physics / Mathematical \& Computational},
}


and it did work in this form from the old zotero:

@book{Breuer2002,
title = {The Theory of Open Quantum Systems},
author = {Breuer, Heinz-Peter and Petruccione, Francesco},
year = {2002},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
abstract = {This book...},
isbn = {978-0-19-852063-4},
langid = {english},
keywords = {Science / Physics / Mathematical & Computational,Science / Physics / Quantum Theory}
}

Because I have the old .bib file I can manually replace the entries that cause problems and get the latex compilation to be successful.

Is there a setting I should change in Zotero to fix this? I tried the three different possible character encodings that I saw available under "export library" (Unicode UTF-8, Unicode UTF-8 without BOM and western).
Thanks, Emily

adamsmith

If you need escaped special characters in your BibTeX (there's nothing invalid about UTF-8 and you can likely make it work using the inputenc package), you need to use "Western" encoding on export. I know you say you tried that, but please double-check -- I just tested and that's working in Zotero 7.0.x the same way it always has.

adamsmith

Beyond that, I'm wondering if you used BetterBibTeX before. Zotero has exported the language to "language" and not "langid" (which I think is used in BibLaTeX, not BibTeX, but the rest of your file doesn't look like BibLaTeX)

etownsen

Yes, I have BetterBibTex installed on both Zoteros. But honestly setting up Zotero is something I've only done a couple of times with years in between, so maybe I set it up wrong on the new computer. I think I'm doing the same procedure ("File -> Export Library") to generate the .bib on each of the two computers.

I don't think the issue is actually about special characters, because as I said, fixing the one special character just changes which error I get. And the only errors I get are about the two books I'm citing in this document, one of which has no special characters.

adamsmith

With BBT installed you have two BibTeX choices: BibTeX and Better BibTeX. Try the latter.
Hard to say what's wrong with the Breuer reference -- could be the & in the keywords. You could just remove that from the tag.

etownsen

Yes, using Better BibTeX as the "format" when I export the library fixes all my problems. And that is what I have always done, but normally Zotero remembers that for me, so I had stopped registering that there is a format dropdown menu in the export function, and thus hadn't switched it from BibTeX to Better BibTeX when I started using it on the new computer. Thank you for your observations.