Problem with Word plugin: Undoing changes in citations against my will

Fabian Baumann

Hello everyone,

Since I installed Zotero 5.0, I've had a problem with the Microsoft Word plugin. Whenever I want to cite an item for the second time, Zotero asks me whether I want to keep my changes in the first citation of the item (since I work with many languages, I often have to change details in the way things are cited). If I then click "Yes", it changes the first citation back to what it was anyway. If I click "No", same thing. Very annoying.

Does anyone have an idea what I ought to do?

Thank you in advance, Fabian

bwiernik

You should not edit citations directly in the Word document, but instead use the Zotero page number, prefix, suffix, and Suppress Author fields:
https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage#customizing_cites

adamsmith

True, but this should still work as advertised.

What citation style is this and which exact versions of Word and Zotero?

Fabian Baumann

Thank you for your answers!

I know that I should ideally use the Zotero fields, but when the works cited are in many different languages, I always find myself needing to correct various details.

I am using Word for Mac 15.27, Zotero 5.0.47, Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) Full Note. The citation style language setting is Afrikaans, which I have found to be least intrusive.

This was not a problem when I was using Zotero 4.

adamsmith

Could you expand on this?

I know that I should ideally use the Zotero fields, but when the works cited are in many different languages, I always find myself needing to correct various details.

I'm not quite sure I understand why using sources in many languages requires changing citation details.


As for your issues, start by updating Word. You're using a version of Word 2016 from October 2016 with numerous known issues related to reference manager integration.

Fabian Baumann

To name one of the central problems: If the language setting is English, the citation style capitalises all nouns, which is simply wrong for most other languages. If I change it to, say, French or German, it uses punctuation marks that are incorrect in English.

adamsmith

Right. There's a solution for that:
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/preventing_title_casing_for_non-english_titles

Fabian Baumann

Oh, thank you very much for that. I had been looking for something like it unsuccessfully.