Merging multiple word documents with references

mmenezes77

I am trying to merge three documents together. In the past I have been able to cut and paste documents and the references will update automatically, however now this is not the case. I'm trying to avoid re-citing the papers so that the References will be correct. The document would only be about 30 pages. Please help! I am using a Mac and have the Zotero Standalone. I can also sign on to Zotero through Firefox.

adamsmith

Are you pasting to a new document or pasting two of them to the third one that already has Zotero citations? The latter should just work. For the former you should first select a citation style in the target document using "Set Document Preferences".

mmenezes77

I was pasting chapter 1 and 3 to the Chapter 2. Chapter 2 was the longest so I was trying to avoid re-citing that document.

adamsmith

OK, and when you try inserting a bibliography in any of the chapters individually (for testing) that works?
And how can you tell the citations' aren't updating?

mmenezes77

Yes, all three chapters have a bibliography. I am copying the document without the bibliography because there may be repeated citations.

I can tell it's not updating because I have many citations from the CDC.gov and they are labeled a, b, c, etc. When I check the paper to the bibliography, the letters aren't matching the citation at the end.

adamsmith

Have you tried hitting the Refresh button after copy&paste?

mmenezes77

the Zotero Refresh button.....yes. That's what used to do it.

I finally tried to copy and paste parts of the document and then re-enter citations for the shorter chapters and it wouldn't refresh that either. Still had the wrong citation according to the bibliography. I didn't try to "remove codes" when doing that though.

adamsmith

wait -- if you remove codes, this won't work for sure, that's the whole point of doing that.

But let's step back, you say above "Yes, all three chapters have a bibliography." but I want to make sure that you have active Zotero citations working in all three of them. So could you try adding any citation that's not yet in the bibliography and see if the bibliography updates to include that?
The most likely problem here is not the copy&paste, but something that's not right in at least one of the document.

mmenezes77

I didn't remove codes yet, I was trying to see if that would help if I wanted to go and re-cite the other two documents. I will try the other recommendation now.

mmenezes77

Then I tried hitting "insert a bibliography" and it said I had to add a citation
I tried adding a citation and it wouldn't refresh.
Then I deleted the bibliography all together to see if it would re-create one and only the new citation came up.

Is it possible I should save these documents as a different version of Word?

adamsmith

So at this point it doesn't sound like they're containing any Zotero-linked citations at all. The most common reason that occurs is if they're saved in an incompatible file format (.odt or .rtf) or if they've been opened in other software (Pages, LibreOffice, Google Docs).

Do you have any backed up versions of these you could test?

mmenezes77

I will have to check.

mmenezes77

If I don't have another copy of this, how would I go about re-citing the document once I merge it?

adamsmith

If you don't have any copy with citations still linked, you'd have to manually re-insert all citations. Sorry.

mmenezes77

I was able to find an old copy of my Ch 2 which is the longest. When I copy the other chapters to it, it will show the old citations. Do I delete them and then add the new citations?

The old version of the paper automatically updated the bibliography

adamsmith

Yes, you'll probably have to do that. You'll also want to figure out what happened to your chapters. It's obviously not normal for Zotero citations to just stop working.

mmenezes77

Thank you so much for your time. I just went through the whole thing and reentered the citations needed. EEK! I shared my document on google drive for teachers to have access to it, that may have been the problem. From now on I will keep the copy on my computer and make the edits to that version. Again, thank you so much.

adamsmith

Yes, I'd guess Google Drive was the problem.

mmenezes77

I've always saved my documents on google drive and it's never been the problem. My guess is that when the teacher downloads the paper, edits it and then re-uploads it, something must change then.

adamsmith

yes, that's what I mean -- saving to google drive is no problem. Opening with the google doc app is, though.

mmenezes77

Got it! Thank you again for all your help.

Dadiva1908

Hi Adam:

If I understand your initial advice to this user, I should cut and paste chapters 1 & 3 (text only or text and references?) to chapter 2 and the references for all 3 chapters will automatically update?

Please advise.

Thank you.

adamsmith

that's right, yes. If by "references" you mean "bibliography," then no, you should not copy&paste those.

Dadiva1908

So I've copied the text into one Word document, but how do I get the reference lists of all 3 chapters to combine? You wrote above that it would automatically update, but how does Zotero know to create a new "bibliography" as you guys call it?

I'm clearly missing a step. lol

Thank you

qdr

have you tried insert bibliography?

So to be very clear: You have three files:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
All of them must have citations inserted using the Zotero word processor add-on.
None of them should have a bibliography (if they do, delete it).

Then copy Chapter 2 and 3 after Chapter 1 (or any other combination -- just make sure to copy into a doc that already has some Zotero citations. If you copy into an empty doc, you need to select a citation style first).

Then place the cursor where you want your bibliography and click insert bibliography.

adamsmith

(this was actually me)
have you tried insert bibliography?

So to be very clear: You have three files:
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
All of them must have citations inserted using the Zotero word processor add-on.
None of them should have a bibliography (if they do, delete it).

Then copy Chapter 2 and 3 after Chapter 1 (or any other combination -- just make sure to copy into a doc that already has some Zotero citations. If you copy into an empty doc, you need to select a citation style first).

Then place the cursor where you want your bibliography and click insert bibliography.

Dadiva1908

Nope, that's where I messed up. LOL I went back to the draft chapter that didn't have any references. :)

Thank you!

worcjamessmith

Hi Everyone,

I am having a similar problem to this. I am combining two word documents, each of which have Zotero citations inserted.

When I combine them (in a document that already has some citations), the bibliography includes the new citations in the correct order, but the in-line citations will not update when I hit refresh. Therefore, the numbers in the text don't correspond to the numbers in the bibliography (which are correct).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a lot

dobriain

I had the same problem with Libreoffice Writer. The second document reference links were lost. I removed the existing bibliographies and tried as suggested above and it worked fine. Copied over the second document, refreshed the references and then created a new Bibliography.

AlexandraAndreea

Hi everyone!

I have finished to copy-paste from all stand-alone chapters in one big word document where specific templete is asked (this is my PhD thesis). The documents from where I copied had citations inserted and active links (greyed citations) without the bibliography at the end of the chapter. In Document preferences all these stand-alone chapters had the same Citation Style that I modified (Cite them right 10ed - modified).

The problem is that when I started to copy-paste today in an old word document with the Uni requested format, another citation was active (University of Northampton). Now, I have tried to change the citation style from Document Preferences, and Zotero starts to change the in-text citations from The Introduction chapter to change things again (even if they are copy pasted according to the Cite them Right - modified). And half-way through the thesis Zotero, and does not respond and quites and suggest for troubleshooting errors.

I have to hand in the whole draft + bibliography asap! Today!
What to do now? I would be happy if anyone would help me.

adamsmith

Could you just start with a fresh document, select your citation style in the document preferences, then paste all the chapters and apply the university template at the end?

If you do need to paste into a template, you could do that after unlinking Zotero citations (obviously make sure you still have all chapters with linked citations and never unlink those)