Unable to edit bibliography -- my edits keep automatically reverting

zhowlett

Hi!

I am attempting to manually edit my bibliography using the Word plug-in button "Add/Edit bibliography." When I make my changes to my bibliography in the pop-up editor, however, they only work or "take" once. Then, any time I close and re-open Zotero, or any time I try to re-edit my bibliography, all my changes "disappear" and the document automatically reverts to the standard database bibliography.

Is there a fix to this problem? I am using Microsoft Office 2016 and Zotero 5.0.54.

Loyal user here, and extremely grateful to the Zotero community!

best,
Z

zhowlett

Hi again,

I think I've worked out what is happening. The bibliography entries that I cannot edit are ones that I've added "manually" to my bibliography. My other entries, which get inserted automatically to my bibliography when I cite the corresponding sources in-line, can be edited in the pop-up editor. But when I try to edit entries that I have manually added, they "revert" each time I re-open the editor.

What I was trying to do was to differentiate between several undated manuscript entries by the same author, i.e., Smith n.d. a, Smith n.d. b, and so on.... I thought the only way to do this was to add the citations and bibliography entries manually, but I now realize that I can simply put "n.d. a," etc., in the corresponding "date" fields of the entries in my Zotero database... if that make sense. Problem solved. But nevertheless, the above issue is perhaps a minor bug?

Thanks again to the Zotero developers and community for such an amazing piece of software and resource!

~Z

bwiernik

Zotero will automatically add letters to the dates when necessary when you generate a bibliography using the Word add-in. You generally should not use Add/Edit Bibliogrpahy to edit the bibliography.