Upgrade StorageWord integration extremely slow (5-10 min per citation) – Zotero 9.0.6, macOS 15.7.3
Word integration on my thesis document is extremely slow, inserting or editing a citation, or even just confirming the citation style via "Set Document Preferences," takes 5-10 minutes with an indefinite loading bar, even though the document only contains about 80 citations (APA 7 style, no footnotes).
What I've tried, without resolving the delay:
Reinstalled the Word plugin (deleted Zotero.dotm from Startup folder, reinstalled via Zotero preferences)
Works instantly in a brand new, empty Word document
Copied the entire document content into a new Word document, same delay persists there
Found and removed one corrupted (empty) Zotero field via field code view (Fn+Option+F9) , no change
Zotero itself works fine independently of Word (tested copying a bibliography to clipboard, instant)
Disabled automatic proxy configuration (university PAC file), no change
Moved the document out of iCloud Drive sync (local folder), no change
Citation style is APA 7 (author-date, no footnotes)
Setup: Zotero 9.0.6 (x64), macOS 15.7.3, Word for Mac (Microsoft 365), locale de
Debug ID: D1114040001
What I've tried, without resolving the delay:
Reinstalled the Word plugin (deleted Zotero.dotm from Startup folder, reinstalled via Zotero preferences)
Works instantly in a brand new, empty Word document
Copied the entire document content into a new Word document, same delay persists there
Found and removed one corrupted (empty) Zotero field via field code view (Fn+Option+F9) , no change
Zotero itself works fine independently of Word (tested copying a bibliography to clipboard, instant)
Disabled automatic proxy configuration (university PAC file), no change
Moved the document out of iCloud Drive sync (local folder), no change
Citation style is APA 7 (author-date, no footnotes)
Setup: Zotero 9.0.6 (x64), macOS 15.7.3, Word for Mac (Microsoft 365), locale de
Debug ID: D1114040001
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/citations_slow
Even 30 years ago, LaTeX ran stably with citations. But LaTeX was barely usable—at least for me. That has changed, at least: thanks to AI agents, "I" recently wrote a roughly 140-page book in about one week, with over 100 citations. No crashes, no unusual delays. Virtual Linux Mint with just 2 CPU cores and 8 GB RAM. The connected Zotero runs in a Windows VM; both VMs run on the same host.
Book: https://www.logies.de/cliodynamics-buch-en.html (includes the software setup)
Tool description: https://www.logies.de/zotero-mcp-server-beaver-comparison.html
(I know this probably won't help here—there will be reasons for using Word—but maybe other people are reading along who still have a choice.)
You could also try editing the Word document in LibreOffice for Mac, but I don't know if Zotero's citation management would go along with it. If conversion issues came up, I'd just dump the problem (and the files) on the AI agent. I'm still often surprised by what it manages to pull off with conversions. (I can't program.)