Upgrade StorageCan "Unlink citations" be word processor agnostic?
Hello,
>TLDR: "Unlink citations" does not work for Word-to-LibreOffice converted files. The documentation has a workaround, but only for MS Word users. I argue that "Unlink citations" converts the fields to static text anyway and should ideally be word processor agnostic. I ask if there is a workaround for my case.
>So here is the issue:
I have a document I wrote in MS Word a while ago. I since migrated to LibreOffice and converted it to ODT. I don’t have access to MS Word anymore.
I need to edit it in LibreOffice and I have to keep inserting/changing citations, but the Zotero Connector complains and asks me to go to MS Word and save the citations as Bookmarks (the normal cross-app procedure).
I don’t have Word anymore, but I’d be fine losing all links anyway, and simply keep the static text.
I understand the way to do that would be to use "Unlink citations". But when I try this, the connector has the same complaint.
The "Fields" and "References" entries in the LO edit menu are greyed out so I cannot unlink all fields via LO’s interface (I understand they are tagged as "Unhandled" internally).
I also tried converting from ODT to ODT via Pandoc, which does flatten the citations, but also everything else and is far too destructive.
I tried removing all citations by hand, just backspacing my way into a citation-free document to start afresh. But even after I erased all fields, the Zotero Connector still refuses to insert new citations and shows the popup. I checked the internal XML, the word "Zotero" does not appear anywhere anymore. Maybe it’s the headers that shows the document has been through conversion is the issue?
That leads to my question: is there a way to do this at all? Shouldn’t "Unlink citation" be app agnostic since we’re converting to static text anyway? I understand it may be difficult to implement, but to me it looks like it’s just a matter of parsing the XML. But I am no developper. If it is really a problem of parsing, is there at least a solution to make the connector accept to work in a document with no citations? That looks doable.
PS: There is a workaround I found while writing this small book. It requires the original DOCX. You can upload the DOCX to MS Word in the browser, then export it as ODT. It is less destructive than Pandoc and preserves almost every basic formatting but it still is a bit too destructive for my taste (I lose the formulas and have to paste them back). Also, two issues with this fix: first, obviously, is that you have to upload the file to Microsoft’s cloud, which one might not want to do. Second, it does not work with a ODT file, nor does it work with a DOCX exported from a ODT. So any change made on the ODT since migration would need to be factored back in.
>TLDR: "Unlink citations" does not work for Word-to-LibreOffice converted files. The documentation has a workaround, but only for MS Word users. I argue that "Unlink citations" converts the fields to static text anyway and should ideally be word processor agnostic. I ask if there is a workaround for my case.
>So here is the issue:
I have a document I wrote in MS Word a while ago. I since migrated to LibreOffice and converted it to ODT. I don’t have access to MS Word anymore.
I need to edit it in LibreOffice and I have to keep inserting/changing citations, but the Zotero Connector complains and asks me to go to MS Word and save the citations as Bookmarks (the normal cross-app procedure).
I don’t have Word anymore, but I’d be fine losing all links anyway, and simply keep the static text.
I understand the way to do that would be to use "Unlink citations". But when I try this, the connector has the same complaint.
The "Fields" and "References" entries in the LO edit menu are greyed out so I cannot unlink all fields via LO’s interface (I understand they are tagged as "Unhandled" internally).
I also tried converting from ODT to ODT via Pandoc, which does flatten the citations, but also everything else and is far too destructive.
I tried removing all citations by hand, just backspacing my way into a citation-free document to start afresh. But even after I erased all fields, the Zotero Connector still refuses to insert new citations and shows the popup. I checked the internal XML, the word "Zotero" does not appear anywhere anymore. Maybe it’s the headers that shows the document has been through conversion is the issue?
That leads to my question: is there a way to do this at all? Shouldn’t "Unlink citation" be app agnostic since we’re converting to static text anyway? I understand it may be difficult to implement, but to me it looks like it’s just a matter of parsing the XML. But I am no developper. If it is really a problem of parsing, is there at least a solution to make the connector accept to work in a document with no citations? That looks doable.
PS: There is a workaround I found while writing this small book. It requires the original DOCX. You can upload the DOCX to MS Word in the browser, then export it as ODT. It is less destructive than Pandoc and preserves almost every basic formatting but it still is a bit too destructive for my taste (I lose the formulas and have to paste them back). Also, two issues with this fix: first, obviously, is that you have to upload the file to Microsoft’s cloud, which one might not want to do. Second, it does not work with a ODT file, nor does it work with a DOCX exported from a ODT. So any change made on the ODT since migration would need to be factored back in.