Do you successfully use the Word plugin for real work?

CB

The subject line isn't meant to be snarky, this is a genuine question.

Background: I have a horror of Word, and am a reluctant LaTeX user for my own work. But I will need to use Word for one or two projects, and before wasting too much time playing, I just want to know how practical the Zotero-Word plugin is for real use (ie. for publishable papers). I use the Zotero sync beta.

Specifically, I'd be setting the plugin to APA style. 'Practical' isn't necessarily a demand for perfectly automated output. I don't mind cleaning up a bit. But, overall, is it a useful time/error-saver over manually inserting references?

RJM

I've been using it very happily in word to write a thesis and papers - I've found there's a bit of cleaning up involved, but no more than with any other reference manager I've used. Unfortunately, it doesn't make the experience of trying to use word to format a complicated document any easier tho!

pesho

I wrote couple of grant application using the plugin and 1.5 beta (and the pre-beta dev. releases). It is perfectly fine and I would recommend using it as long as you don't need to collaborate with somebody else. If several people are working on the paper you need to turn off 'Track changes' while dealing with references. You will also need a shared sync account.

I haven't done more complex documents, i.e. multiple chapters that may or may not share common reference list.

One more caveat. I am using OpenOffice not Word, but I think the experience should be more or less the same.

noksagt

I have also generally prefer LaTeX for document authoring & management. However, I find I sometimes have to use OO.o & I have had papers accepted that were written in OO.o Writer with unmodified Zotero-generated bibliographies. I think that there are many users who have used the plugins with few problems (and the few problems that others have experienced have been raised on these forums & have mostly been addressed).

I don't know if I'd trust a book or thesis to it, but I am conservative & would be hesitant trust those to OO.o Writer or MS Word with the task anyway. Many have reported using it on theses.

If you have any doubts, you could keep thorough backups of your zotero directory & your document (which you should be doing anyway) & it will cost you nothing to just try it.

sean

I'm happily using it for my book manuscript, but a) you may not trust my motives and b) you may not consider my research "real work."

adamsmith

I've written some papers - but not yet a longer manuscript - using the Ooo plugin.

CB

Thanks for all the responses. For the most part it looks feasible as I'm talking about short papers, nothing thesis- or book-like in length or complexity.

However:

It is perfectly fine and I would recommend using it as long as you don't need to collaborate with somebody else. If several people are working on the paper you need to turn off 'Track changes' while dealing with references.

That's a point. Others' desire to use of 'track changes' would be one of my main reasons for descending to Word for some docs. But OTOH I'd be the only person editing or dealing with references, so perhaps it wouldn't be a problem.

arggem

I've written a number of monographs (30-40 pages) without any problems using Word.

kieren

Word is awful[1], but everyone uses it :(. Unfortunately I can't think of anything that's not awful with citation support that I can persuade other people to use :`(

I've written many papers/tech reports in the 2-10 thousand words length range with Zotero and Word. As others have said you need a single person to manage the bibliographic stuff if using the Word/Zotero until the dev team deal with this important limitation.

[1] It's got to be the worst, most widely deployed piece of software in history.

CB

It's got to be the worst, most widely deployed piece of software in history.

Well, yes. So much for the wisdom of the crowd, eh?

OTOH, what facilities Word does offer for real structured documents (ie. styles) are almost uniformly ignored by Word users, in favour of incoherent and amateurish ad hoc formatting. Word can be used well, and there are even decent free tools to assist (eg. http://ice.usq.edu.au/). But the fact that almost no-one uses them must say something, about something, or someone, I guess.

rfritz

Yes, word plugins work fine.

James

I've been using it to write my PhD thesis on Word 2003 and Word 2007 with no serious problems.

Two minor issues are, firstly, the Word plug-in can't deal with small-caps, which disappear if you try to edit a field, and secondly, any accents in your bibliography cause problems with formatting. Perhaps Sean knows if there is any likelihood of these issues being fixed soon.

But generally, I've been very satisfied.

CB

Thanks for the info James.

I was about to suggest that you were brave to take on a whole thesis in Word, but then of course, it is the tool most people use to create large docs, and us non-Word-users are the distinct minority.