References not updating correctly

Kimberlily

Really hoping someone can help me as my dissertation was about to go to print when I realised something was missing from my references!

I'm using zotero 4.0.19 on my Mac with MS Word

In about 10 of my references the web address is missing despite the entry being marked as a webpage. No matter what I do I cannot get the web address to display within the reference e.g.

BBC News. (2012). Gary McKinnon extradition to US blocked by Theresa May. BBC News. <<WEB ADDRESS MISSING>>

The entry within Zotero is correct but it won't seem to pick up the full details. Please can someone help me - I'm pretty desperate to get this sorted and I cannot work out what's going wrong.

Can anyone help - this is my first time using zotero and I'm literally at a loss

Thanks

aurimas

Which citation style?

Kimberlily

APA 6th edition

Kimberlily

I should add all other references including web addresses are displayed correctly - it's just a few random ones that aren't displaying correctly

aurimas

Can you take one of the references that is displaying incorrectly, right-click it in Zotero and export it as Zotero RDF (exclude notes and attachments)? Then post the contents of the exported file (open it in a text editor) to http://gist.github.com and link to it here.

Edit: also, verify that you are exporting the correct reference by temporarily changing something in the title and refreshing the citation in your document. The change should carry over to your document. If not, then you're either looking at the wrong reference in Zotero or the link between the Zotero reference and your word document has been broken (somehow).

Kimberlily

Hello

In process of trying to perform the RDF thing-me-bob but I also changed the reference and refreshing - the reference does not seem to be updating so it looks like a link might be broken......

Kimberlily

Does this help?

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/10685339

It's currently listed as an email but that's because I made some changes to try and force zotero to refresh - I've changed it back

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/10685477

aurimas

The RDF looks ok, but if it's not updating then that wouldn't be an issue anyway. Have you manually edited that reference via "Edit Bibliography"? If you click "Edit Bibliography" in Word, select the reference in question, can you click on the "Revert" button at the bottom left corner? If you click it, does it fix the reference?

Kimberlily

I cannot find the revert button within edit in word - sorry. How do I find this?

aurimas

http://imgur.com/THHdTnw

Kimberlily

The revert button is greyed out - I can't select it

aurimas

Make sure you have a backup of your thesis.

Find that reference in text, delete it, then insert it again. When you go to insert, see how many of those references are listed in the suggestion list. Insert the one that listed under "My Library" (or the name of the group you're working with). Refresh bibliography, see if that fixes it.

Kimberlily

Ah OK, it worked. If I delete it and re-enter it then it seems to correct it. I didn't even think to do that..... bit of a pain to have to do it to them all but better than stressing about it.

Do you know why it's done this though?

aurimas

Not sure why, but if you go back to the backup you made before re-inserting the reference, find the reference in text, press Alt+F9 and copy-paste here the field codes that appear, we might be able to figure it out. Press ALT+F9 again to hide field codes.

Kimberlily

The alt+F9 doesn't seem to be working - no field codes appear

aurimas

Sounds like you might be using Bookmarks instead of Fields to store references in Word (which is also probably why you're seeing the issues above, since Bookmarks break easier than Fields). You can change this setting in the Document Preferences (button next to Refresh Bibliography). If, after switching to Fields, you press Alt+F9 and the citation in question does not show field codes, then the bookmark was accidentally edited. If you do see field codes, then please post them here.

If everything is otherwise working for you in your thesis, then there's no reason to switch to Fields (unless you want to help us figure out what happened in the first place).

aurimas

@adamsmith, I see that using APA 6th I get different bibliography formatting depending on whether I use Fields or Bookmarks. With Fields I get double spacing and hanging indents. With Bookmarks I do not. Can you check what happens in LO with Bookmarks?

Kimberlily

Hello - am guessing your last comment was destined for a different thread? :-)

My thesis is completed so thankfully my work is done!! However, I have tried to do as you suggested and I just cannot get any field codes to come up once I've pressed Alt+F9, on any of them.

It is also already set to field too, not bookmarks.

I'm probably being thick so I apologise but where exactly am I pressing Alt+F9. Is it in word whilst being 'in' the citation in-text, or in the citation in the bibliography list or is it somewhere within zotero?

aurimas

Yeah, my last comment was a bit off topic (and addressed at another Zotero contributor), but it was sort of in reference to this thread.

In any case, it's odd that you can't get field codes to come up. You should be pressing Alt+F9 anywhere inside Word. I don't use a Mac myself, so I can't really help you troubleshoot this part. Maybe Dan knows why this is happening.

Though, obviously you've solved your problems, so anything from now on would just be trying to figure out what happened. I wouldn't want to ask you to send us your whole thesis, but if you could just copy a small portion of it into a new document (just the in-text reference that is broken plus a word before and after the reference) into a new document (after copying, insert bibliography to verify that the reference was copied over correctly) and email it to support@zotero.org that would be much appreciated.

adamsmith

might be alt+Fn+F9 on a Mac - try that.

(@aurimas - layout with bookmarks is correct in LibreOffice)