When adding references in Word, error message states a temporary file is locked for editing

ianbruce

I use Word 2000 and the latest version of Zotero V 4.0.29.10. I was previously able to add references without problems by clicking into the Word Zotero toolbar (Zotero Bibliographic Management) in the usual way. Then a couple of months ago, whenever I tried to add a reference in a Word document, an error message came up quoting temporary file name. This name varies each time I reopen Word, so the following is just an example:

'ZOT3766.TMP is locked for editing by another user. Click Notify to open a read-only copy of the document and receive notification when the document is no longer in use'

The only solution is to click the 'Notify' button. Immediately, a second Word file opens. This can be seen by hovering the mouse arrow above the Word Toolbar icon at the bottom of my computer screen. From what can be seen by looking at the two Word files, one is my original Word text file and the second is completely blank. It is not possible to switch across to the blank Word screen though.

The reference appears OK in my working text file, but every time I want to add another reference I get the same warning message, which I get around by clicking the 'Notify' button. When I save and close down my working Word text file, the blank file simultaneously closes down without a problem.

In short, I am getting around the problem but Zotero should surely not be working this way. Is there a solution?

wplcarter

I also use Word 2000 and and would rather not have to get and use another version. I just installed Zotero because I need it for a collaborative project but was disappointed to find that the Zotero documentation says it was compatible with Word 2003 and newer, implying it is not compatible with Word 2000. I was presently surprised to find that it seems to sort of work with Word 2000, though I get the errors mentioned by ianbruce. Does any one know of a better work-around than what ianbruce uses? Is there another incompatibility that would corrupt Word 2000 documents and make it inadvisable to use with Zotero even if one is willing to tolerate using this work around?

adomasven

I'm afraid there will not be any official support for Word 2000 integration and that may indeed break at any point in a more tragic way than currently existing problems. We are not testing with Word 2000, when developing. Carry on using it, if it works, but there are not guarantees for it not corrupting your documents in some dramatic way, especially going forward.

If it is possible at all, we recommend switching to at least Word 2007 as it was a massive upgrade over Word 2003 and makes it fairly easy to support for us.