Visual Basic for Applications not installed error in Word for Mac plugin

emet · December 9, 2012

Hey, sorry for reposting this but I would really need to get Zotero/word up and running.

I Cannot generate references in Office for mac 2011, when pressing the insert quotation button I get a message about "Visual Basic for Application" not being installed. I have followed the steps on the faq and troubleshooting pages regarding word processor plug-ins.
De-installed Office and reinstalling it, both as a custom installation with the right box ticked and as a standard installation. Also erased the OLE Registration Databese from two different locations mentioned in another thread.
Have Zootero Standalone installed (3.0.11.1), Office for mac 2011 (14.2.3) and Mac OS 10.6.8. Have previously used LibreOffice with Zootero and that have worked fine, LibreOffice is still installed.

Generated error report 872829096.

Is there any other steps I can take? A bit desperate at this time, lots of works that needs to get done.
Thanks for any help!

Simon · December 9, 2012

If you're getting an error saying that Visual Basic for Applications isn't installed, it suggests that AppleScript isn't working in Word. We don't have any other solutions for this besides those listed on the troubleshooting pages.

The only advice I can provide is to try contacting Microsoft and see if someone there wants to troubleshoot this. You can verify that the problem arises in Word and not Zotero by opening AppleScript Editor, and, with a Word document open, typing

tell application "Microsoft Word" to name of active document

into the box and clicking Run. Word is supposed to return the name of the active document, but if AppleScript doesn't work, it will return "missing value."

emet · January 2, 2013

Problem solved, it was indeed VBA that caused it. VBA seem unable to handle, in my case, the Swedish letter 'å' in the name of the hard drive. So after changing that and reinstalling Office it all seem to work fine.

Simon · January 3, 2013

Thanks for following up. I've added this to the troubleshooting page.

sxflynn · October 29, 2014

Thank you everyone for posting this thread. I helped troubleshoot Word Zotero integration for a Chinese Zotero user. His Mac hard drive name was in Chinese. When we changed it to 'Macintosh HD' and restarted Word, the Zotero plugin worked. Hopefully Word 2014 will fix this issue.