Bug in Zotero for LibreOffice

dobriain

If you copy and paste a section from a document containing references and move that section to another part of the same document the links to Zotero are gone. The links [x] remain visible but are in white in colour (the working ones are in grey) and no longer update when the Zotero refresh button is clicked.

bwiernik

What version of LibreOffice, what operating system, and what version of Zotero?

adamsmith

I think that's a known issue and is entirely due to how LibreOffice handles copy&paste of reference marks (the grey fields). Both cut&paste in the same document and copy&paste into a new one work.

dobriain

~ $ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=19.1
DISTRIB_CODENAME=tessa
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa"

~ $ libreoffice --version
LibreOffice 6.1.4.2 edc26d7faf41e406360d34efe1e39fe03035f7b0

~ $ zotero --version
Zotero Zotero 5.0.60, Copyright (c) 2006-2018 Contributors

dobriain

~ adamsmith It works fine copying from one document to another as long as Zotero is open. The problem appears when the reference already exists elsewhere in the document that is being coped into.

adamsmith

That's exactly what I'm saying above -- that's how LibreOffice handles Reference Marks. Nothing Zotero can do about that.

dobriain

OK Adam, its a bit of a pain in the arse doing large documents when joining chapters. Perhaps the problem could be brought up with LibreOffice to see if there is a fix from their side. Undoubtedly they would act quicker from Zotero than me. I am waiting over 3 years to get them to change the USh currency from "Ganda" to Uganda, whatever Ganda was ever supposed to be. Thanks for your input.

adamsmith

Maybe I'm misunderstanding -- why is this a problem when joining chapters? What I'm describing should not affect pasting to a new document.

dobriain

If there are references common between chapters, the references in the chapters being pasted in are dropped as described.

adamsmith

That shouldn't happen. Let me see if I can replicate that. There's nothing unusual about your workflow, right? You're just using the Zotero LibreOffice add-on to add citations?

dobriain

I installed Zotero for Linux (it is standalone now, used to be embedded within Firefox). Installed the connector in LibreOffice. I highlight where I want a reference, click Add/Edit citation, a box pops up, I put in the first few letters of the title of the reference that I added to Zotero, a list of the nearest items appear, I select the correct one and click enter and hey presto the reference is there and added to the bibliography at the end of the document.

adomasven

If you ever copy citations from one chapter to the other, then on a copy back to the original chapter (or even if you copy both to a new document) the later copied one will become "unlinked". I.e. LibreOffice does not allow you to have copies of the same ReferenceMark, even when they come from different documents. I do not think the Document Foundation will be able to change this. ReferenceMarks are intended to be used as unique reference points in the document and have unique underlying identifiers, which is why this is the case. Zotero uses ReferenceMarks to store citations, because this is the most robust way to do it in LibreOffice, but technically that's not what they are designed for.

dobriain

Fair enough, doesn't take to long to go back and remake them. Just for clarification, that doesn't mean that the same reference can't appear multiple times in a document right ?

adamsmith

Correct -- Zotero inserts unique citation IDs for every citation, even if it is to the same item.
But as Adomas says, what you describe should not happen for a traditional document merge process: If you insert citations as you describe in two document and then copy document two into document one, that'll be completely fine. It just starts getting iffy if you regular use copy between documents, for example.

dobriain

Thanks, guys for your explanations, it answers my question completely, keep up the good work.