Dash in AMA is producing odd characters "—"

ThinkResearch
Hello,

The dash "-" is producing very strange, broken characters in AMA bibliography.
For example, if the title is "Chapter 24 - Warfarin", it would show in bibliography as "Chapter 24—Warfarin".

It seems to replace "-" with " ".

I will copy and paste an example bibliography for more context:

Fernando S, Broadfoot A. Chronic urticaria—Assessment and treatment. Aust Fam Physician. 2010;39(3):135-138. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20369115.

The correct title is supposed to be:

Fernando S, Broadfoot A. Chronic urticaria - Assessment and treatment. Aust Fam Physician. 2010;39(3):135-138. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20369115.

If anyone can advise, that would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Lily

(FYI, I've checked that my Zotero is latest version and updated. This occurs whether the reference is Journal Article, Book, Website, etc. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Zotero, but problem persists)
  • dstillman
    What word processor and exact word processor version?
  • ThinkResearch
    I went into Help --> About Zotero, and saw that the version number is 5.0.71.

    I checked for updates again, and ensured that I have the latest version. Also, I tried reinstalling Word Processors, and the same issues persist.
  • bwiernik
    What word processor (Word or LibreOffice) and what version of that word processor (not of Zotero) are you using?
  • ThinkResearch
    I'm using both: I went into Add-ons Manager, and I see that I'm using Zotero Word for Windows Integration, version 5.0.14.SA.5.0.72, and also the Zotero LibreOffice Integration, version 5.0.20.SA.5.0.72.

    I tried disabling each one at a time, so that I am using only one of those, but the same issue still persists.

    When I disabled Zotero Word for Windows Integration, and only enabled the Zotero LibreOffice Integration, the Microsoft Word Zotero did not work at all, but gave me a pop-up that said "Zotero could not load the component necessary to communicate with your word processor. Go to Tools → Add-ons → Extensions in Zotero and make sure that the extension for your word processor is enabled". So it seems like Zotero Word for Windows Integration is the correct word processor that I am using (not the LibreOffice) to add Zotero references in Microsoft Word. But disabling LibreOffice and enabling only the Zotero Word for Windows Integration does not do anything, and does not solve the problem.
  • bwiernik
    No, not the versions of the Zotero plugins. What versions of the Word/LibreOffice programs themselves (e.g., Word for Mac 2016, Word for Windows 2019; what specific version numbers, like 1907 or 16.0.51)?
  • ThinkResearch
    Oh I see, I use Microsoft Word for Office 365, for Windows 10. It says version 1906.
  • ThinkResearch
    There is also a longer version number - 16.0.11727.20222
  • dstillman
    edited July 25, 2019
    OK, so I've fixed the immediate issue in the latest Zotero beta, and the fix will be included in 5.0.73 soon.

    (Technical explanation: We were apparently loading all JavaScript files as ASCII. We've always just escaped extended characters in Zotero code without really thinking about this, but citeproc-js used an embedded em dash in the new uppercase_subtitles code (which we applied to AMA in 5.0.70). I've now fixed this properly, so embedded UTF-8 characters in JS files should no longer be a problem.)

    However, I'm still a little confused by the behavior here, so hopefully @fbennett or someone else can clarify. With uppercase_subtitles applied, a title of Chapter 24 - Warfarin (a regular ASCII hyphen with spaces around it) becomes Chapter 24—Warfarin. (an em dash with no spaces around it) in the AMA bibliography. If I disable uppercase_subtitles, it's left as Chapter 24 - Warfarin. This seems out of scope for uppercase_subtitles, and I don't know whether it's correct behavior for AMA (or APA and Academy of Management, where we also apply uppercase_subtitles).
  • dstillman
    edited July 25, 2019
    Judging by this example (under ISO Standards), it looks like it's correct for APA.
  • dstillman
    edited July 25, 2019
    AMA uses an en dash in their examples.

    [Edit: This page was loading in full for me originally, but now it wants a subscription.]
  • fbennett
    Tests for that were here (some more may have been added to the same group later, French had special demands IIRC). Not keen to add further runtime options to tune output, it seems better to leave that to CSL spec extensions. Happy to advise on a fork though, if that's desired.
  • bwiernik
    I’d say that we can leave the em dash as the more widely used dash separator for titles/subtitles, even in medical journals. Dashes are very rare in any event. Most journals use colons.
  • dstillman
    OK, that's fine with me. Thanks.
  • dstillman
    @ThinkResearch: This is fixed in Zotero 5.0.73, available now. Thanks for reporting.
  • ThinkResearch
    I just updated my Zotero, and confirmed that it's fixed! Thank you so much!
This discussion has been closed.