working with students and the word plug-in never appears

chelsearein
Hi,

I have tried to resolve this issue multiple times. The word plug in doesn't show up in any word application no matter what I (or my students) are using - MAC, PC, word 16 etc. I cannot get it to work. I have re-booted, diasabled, enabled, rebooted again and nothing. I have run the script through, enabled macros. I need this process to be better streamlined or no one is going to take this program seriously. I cannot even show it on my work desktop and have to bring in my laptop computer to Demo. I have had IT try to look at it and they cannot figure it out either. What can I do to get the word plug -in functional without going through 10 advanced IT steps? It says Zotero is compatible with word 16 and office 365 but I have yet to see evidence.
  • adamsmith
    I'm sorry you're struggling with this, but let's not get carried away: Zotero is being used by hundreds of thousands of people, including countless university faculty and other professional researchers -- it's obviously getting taken seriously.

    It also definitely works on Word 16 with a Office 365 subscription (I have that running right here). If this consistently fails to work on computers managed by your institution, the particulars of that installation would be the place to start troubleshooting.

    You never replied to the last answer your received on your previous thread: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/328552/#Comment_328552 -- did you try to get IT to allow macros to run? What did they say/find?
  • chelsearein
    Hi,

    The IT department is aware that the macros that enable the word plug-in are disabled by a company wide policy on the work computers - this means mine and theirs. My students, bringing in personal laptops, should be able to download Zotero and the cite while you write feature with the word plug-in according to the Zotero compatibility document online and they are, so far, all unable to. This is on Macs, Dells, Acers etc.
  • adamsmith
    Ah, OK, so these are the students' own laptops. Really hard to say then -- this isn't actually a terribly common problem, so something odd is going on. Most people use Zotero with Word 2016 and a good number of them are on Word 365 subscriptions, so if this happened to even a significant minority of users we wouldn't talk about anything else here.

    I'm afraid the best way to figure out what's going on would be to run step-by-step troubleshooting with at least a couple of these cases and see if there are any commonalities if that's at all possible. (i.e. start with "Re-install Word components" under Cite and restart Word, if that doesn't work run through the manual install, check on the location of the Word startup folder, etc.).
  • chelsearein
    Ok I will try to troubleshoot it with a few students at my next consultation. Thank you for trying to figure it out!

  • adamsmith
    So here are some of the things we'd want to know:
    1. Does clicking on Reinstall word components fix this?
    2. Are you able to find the Word Startup Folder?
    2 a) If so, does placing the .dotm file into it and restarting make the add-on show up in Word?
    2.b) If not, do you see the toolbar when you just open Zotero.dotm in Word?
    3. If 2a), what's the location of the Startup Folder (you can xxx out user names)
    4. If you've gotten that far, does the Word add-on work, or is it still inactive?
  • chelsearein
    Hi Adam,

    I did all the steps and the cite while you write still does not work. Is it supported on office Professional Plus 2016?
  • adamsmith
    Yes, this definitely isn't a general issue. I have it working on professional plus on multiple computers. What are the answers to my questions above?
  • chelsearein
    Is there a way to add screenshots to this conversation?

    1. Does clicking on Reinstall word components fix this? NO


    2. Are you able to find the Word Startup Folder? YES, but now when I go into my WORD start-up I get this under it: C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero


    2 a) If so, does placing the .dotm file into it and restarting make the add-on show up in Word? NO

    2.b) If not, do you see the toolbar when you just open Zotero.dotm in Word?
    NO just EndNote

    3. If 2a), what's the location of the Startup Folder (you can xxx out user names)
    Under Startup now I see - \Program Files (x86)\Zotero


    4. If you've gotten that far, does the Word add-on work, or is it still inactive?
    Still Inactive

    When I go into Customize Ribbon --> Main Tabs -->
    dvper --> Add ins, Word Add Ins are greyed out. This happened on my student's personal computer as well.
    I have EndNote working. Under Add-Ins
    \Cwyw\19\EndNote.cwyw.dll


  • adamsmith
    edited May 14, 2019
    OK, just to make sure:
    2.b) If not, do you see the toolbar when you just open Zotero.dotm in Word?
    NO just EndNote
    I don't think we've ever seen this. So you're finding the file Zotero.dotm, double-clicking it to open, and there is no sign of Zotero at all?
    Note that Zotero would appear as its own tab in the Word ribbon.

    And if you click on "Add-ins" under Options in Word, also no mention of Zotero?

    (Zotero does not show up in the customize ribbon dialog, so that's expected)
  • chelsearein
    Okay I think I figured it out. Seemed to be an issue that it was running from a file in my computer on a shared drive (still a C drive though). I moved the Zotero to my documents and under "add-in's I was able to get that into the word toolbar and have small icons for the Zotero cite while you write features. Unfortunantly my macro's have still disabled using the feature until I get permission with IT. Hopefully i can troubleshoot it on my student's computers as we were unable to figure out the install today on a windows laptop.
  • dstillman
    I'm not really following that but this is what it should look like when properly installed:

    https://www.zotero.org/support/_media/word_integration_tab.png

    To show what you're seeing, you can upload screenshots somewhere (e.g., Dropbox) and post links here.
    I moved the Zotero to my documents
    What do you mean by that?
    Under Startup now I see - \Program Files (x86)\Zotero
    That's not right at all. This seems like you changed the Word Startup folder to point to the Zotero program files directory? You should clear that so that it returns to the default location, and then make sure that Zotero.dotm exists in the specified folder.
  • chelsearein
    Hi,

    See link to photos:

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/djg4hg3oh83kz2l/AACE8yoQhIVuWZ3QCflgrLYZa?dl=0

    When I add the Zotero filepath to the startup word folder it only works if I DO NOT set it back to the default. If Zotero is the filepath I see the zotero icons under "add ins" in the toolbar. It looks to be in my add ins folder in word as well. When I set it back to the word default startup, I lose the Zotero icons and the add in tab in the toolbar.


    Best,
    Chelsea
  • dstillman
    First, reset the Startup folder back to the default — that should absolutely not be pointing to the Zotero application directory (and I'm actually curious what made you think you should do that, because it's not in the manual installation instructions).

    Next, remove any Zotero entries in Templates and Add-ins in Word, and then restart Word and make sure nothing Zotero-related appears. There shouldn't be a Zotero toolbar under Add-ins, and the toolbar in your screenshot is from an older version of Zotero and shouldn't show up at all.

    Next, reinstall Zotero from the download page. There should be a Zotero.dotm file in the zoteroWinWordIntegration@zotero.org/install folder, but that was somehow moved or deleted on your system.

    After reinstalling Zotero, close Word and reinstall the plugin from the Cite → Word Processors pane of the Zotero preferences, and then start Word and see if the Zotero tab appears in the Ribbon.

    If it doesn't, check whether Zotero.dotm exists in the Word Startup folder. If it doesn't, copy (don't move) Zotero.dotm from the zoteroWinWordIntegration@zotero.org/install folder to the Startup folder, as explained in the manual installation instructions. Then restart Word and let us know if the Zotero tab appears.

    Don't do anything else not listed here. You seem to have things in a pretty unusual state, so anything else is just going to make this harder to debug.

    (Also, to be clear, none of this should be necessary — Zotero installs the plugin automatically at first startup, and that works properly for most people — but security software, IT restrictions, or unusual Word setups can cause problems.)
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