problem with docx files in open office caused by footnotes

rcrath

Hi, I have a bug report open over at open office. I switched working from windows/office 2010 to ubuntu 10.04/openoffice. All is lovely except that any docs with zotero-produced footnotes in themcrash openoffice.

using ff 3.68 and zotero 2.xx (the problemn goes back a ways)

the bug there, they found that the footnotes were causing "docx: loop on load of a specific document"

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=112614

any chance this is something that can be fixed on the zotero end?

When I get a chance, I'll run a few tests to see if it is only word files with footnotes from zotero or if it happens on all footnoted files.

rcrath

Yep, it is only msword 2010 files with zotero footnotes in them that crash openoffice. an MSWord docx 2010 file with a non-zotero footnote opens fine, as do files saved in word 2007 I think (I'll try and check that tomorrow...not sure about it.). I can supply a couple of dummy files, one with the zotero footnote and another without if that helps.

rcrath

THe two dummy files done in office 2010 are here:
http://way.net/tmp/zotero/
problem only happens opening them in open office.

rcrath

just bumping this in case it got lost over the weekend. openoffice crashes trying to open any office 2010 files with zotero footnotes. docs footnoted w/o zotero open fine. bug report filed at openoffice too. see above posts for sample files and links.

Simon

This is a bug in Word 2010 and/or OpenOffice.org. Zotero isn't doing anything particularly unusual; it's just putting Word fields into footnotes. Word is solely responsible for saving these, and OpenOffice.org is solely responsible for opening them. This should be fixed on Microsoft's and/or OpenOffice.org's end.

Note that even if you can open the docx files in OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice.org can't import Word fields, so you won't be able to use Zotero functionality. If you need to convert a document to work with Zotero in OpenOffice.org, switch to an author-date style with Bookmarks before saving from Word, and then switch back to your preferred style with ReferenceMarks in OpenOffice.org and make sure to save the file in OpenDocument (odt) format. If you don't, you can remove Word fields by clicking the appropriate button on the Zotero before saving the document, which will probably eliminate the crash.

rcrath

Hey Simon...we met eons ago when I taught at Oberlin for a year.

Everyone says it is everyone else's problem of course, except MS, which just doesn't give a hoot. Open Office is not following up because they see it as a zotero problem since zotero crashes it and other footnotes do not. Anyway, I saved the offending docx files as doc files and they open fine in Open Office with everything I need intact. I usually use Chicago footnotes with no bibliography, so maybe the formatting is not as demanding as other styles, but the doc files work fine without the gymnastics. I'd like to save in ODT, but most publishers want word, so I save in that format so that any problems will become apparent now rather than later.

Thanks for the response.