Continuing reference numbering in multiple documents

Ayar

If I cite (n) references in Chapter X, then open a new document to continue Chapter X+1, is there a way in Zotero to start the reference numbering in the new chapter from (n+1)?

bwiernik

What citation style are you using?

Ayar

Let's say ACS (American Chemical Society), would it matter?

bwiernik

Yes, it matters whether it's a numerical in-text style (like ACS) or a numerical footnote style. For ACS, there isn't a way to have it start from a number other than 1 in a chapter, unfortunately. Even if there were, this would still not be exactly what you want, I suspect--you probably would want citation 6, for example, to have the same reference number in each chapter. This wouldn't work if you simply started each chapter's reference number range at a value higher than 1.

The best path for you is probably to write each chapter separately and just ignore the exact reference numbers used, then combine the chapters into one document at the end during final formatting. Insert the bibliography for the whole book, and the references will update their numbers accordingly.

adamsmith

Sorry, not possible. The only styles that would allow that would be footnote/endnote styles, since you can adjust the starting footnote number in Word. That said, the numbers will update if you paste the chapters one after the other as a final editing step. That would also have the advantage of updating numbers pointing to the same reference, which is of course impossible if you keep them in separate files.

Ayar

@bwiernik: you suspected right, and I kind of guessed that keeping all the content in one document would be my only option, but I was hoping for a way around that for large content where I'd prefer to create a separate document for each chapter. Thank you bwiernik and adamsmith for your explanations.

bwiernik

I would definitely recommend keeping things in separate chapters and then only combining them at the final formatting step. That will be much easier both for writing, as well as for keeping Zotero running quickly (it can slow down with very long documents and many citations).