Word/(OpenOffice) plugin plans?

CB

Are there any plans to extend the flexibility of the Word plugin? I'm thinking of things like the variety of in-text citation types in APA. At the moment, for example, in-texts are inserted as (Author, Year), with no equivalent of BibTex's \citeA, \citeNP, etc. It seems they can be manually edited into different formats, but I don't know what happens then on updates (not being a regular Word user).

Secondly, is a similar plugin in the works for OpenOffice?

scot

Do clarify the last question for me as well (on the safety of manually editing automatic citation-notes). I also need to do manual editing at the moment (to add my own commentary to a citation or first-version information, etc.), but I have the impression that upgrades to Zotero or the MS Word citation tool can (or do) reprint all citations-in-notes according to the standard citation format selected. My chief solution at the moment is just to copy Zotero citations to the clipboard and paste them to my footnotes. This is not the best long-term solution (especially for those who need the flexibility to change formats), but for me just now it seems the safest way to keep my citation-footnotes from getting touched.

ptsefton

Ian Laurenson has done some work, sponsored by the University of Southern Queensland, to adapt the plugi so it will work in both Word and OpenOffice.org (from the same code!). It's working, with some bugs. Ian has posted here asking about getting it adopted by Zotero, but I have not heard how that's going. The new version uses bookmarks to store citation info rather than fields, as the old way was not going to interoperate with OpenOffice.org.

Mail me at pt at ptsefton.com if you'd like to check it out. Don't want to distribute it too widely if the Zotero folks aren't interested in doing it our way.

CB

ptsefton: is this connected with the USQ's ICE project? I've been keeping a vague eye on ICE, and had wondered if it could be used in concert with Zotero.

meyerti

first: real good job the whole zotero thing. just what ive been waiting for since i switched from windows/word/endnote to linux/ooffice

second: what i'd really like to see is a better zotero/oowriter connection. unfortunately the ooffice bibliography tool isn't what it should be. so perfect would be a drag'n'drop from zotero right into oowriter docs (thereby inserting data into the oo-database). second best would be if zotero and ooffice could directly share the same database so no import/export would be required.

last but not least: a good search tool for the zotero forums because i cant exclude all the above has already been said.

thanks

noksagt

First: OO.o already plans to improve their bibliographic tool.

Zotero's data model is richer than the biblio database in OO.o. Since OO.o plans improvements, it probably isn't worth changing Zotero to suit a poor model which has planned improvements.

Also: There is an unofficial macro that can be used by both MS Word and OO.o and lets citations roundtrip between the two programs.

Some of this is talked about in the sticky (and other posts can be found by searching for "openoffice" or "oo.o", etc.).

I believe you can copy/paste or drag/drop to a word processor. One limitation is that you must then do the cross-referencing in the document manually.

bdarcus

I'm the co-project lead for the OOo bib project. The current support is bad enough that most (or all) of us would prefer to just get rid of it. As noksagt says, it wouldn't make much sense to use the internal OOo DB, and it's too limited.

pamillet

writing my thesis (i'm not a young student, but an old consultant with some times to loose ;o), i found zotero after different tests (bibus...) and decide immediately to use it.

Firt with Word. work perfectly (even if i'd need others citation format), and i have now more than 100 pages with quite 100 references... using zotero and the macro for Word.
So... all was ok !

Unfortunatley my word document growing with figures and tables becames more and more unstable... And i had to adapt format to the standard of my university... The result was not usable (for my knowledge of Word... ? )

After a short test with OpenOffice, the result was amazing... all problems solved, format very stable, some specific format requirments easy to do...

After a short look on OO solution for OpenOffice using a python script described in previous post, i've decided to change for OO formating the whole document.

But after a week of different tests and all available help read on oo and zotero forums... I'm not able to use the python script... (with my knowledge of python ! )

1/ Could you give more information on using the Word Macro with OO ?
2 /and can we plan that a new OO-Zotero solution could be available before end of 07 ?

thanks a lot for all zotero authors !

pam

bdarcus

pam:

1/ Could you give more information on using the Word Macro with OO ?

https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/524

2 /and can we plan that a new OO-Zotero solution could be available before end of 07 ?

Yes, maybe even before the end of this month ;-)

meyerti

to bdarcus: a OO-zotero solution would indeed be very welcome.
i dont know much of programming and even less about databases but shouldn't it be possible to write an oo-interface to the zotero db. if their datamodel is superior couldn't it be used by just mapping the old oo fields to the zotero fields?
maybe i'm a little naive on this but i'm just about to write my thesis and to have zotero work with oo would be of great help.
oo-2.1 works great, thanks

R.Sheaff

Here is another vote for an OO-zotero solution! I have no programme skills to offer but do use some large reference databases (15000+ entries) for systematic reviews etc. At present stuck in EndNote and/or messy, tiresome conversions to and from OO and other formats. I'm happy to help test an OO-zotero solution if that's of any use.

drsandrug

The Zotero tool concept is a great idea! In an increasingly online world and work styles, it would be better if Zotero is modelled on something like CiteULike / Connotea to share the reference database with the research community - possibly through Zotero's dedicated web based services. What I mean is the capability of sharing references.
Zotero infact should help in downloading a subset of references required for an article and assist in integrating them to OpenOffice.org writer.

bdarcus

@drsandrug: you do realize the Zotero devs have publicly said (many, many times) they'd be offering this functionality ever since they announced Zotero?

As for OOo, hang tight: coming soon.

mabhobs

I think it is important to consider how the back-end (Database) is designed because many programs are not standing the test of time if the back-end has not been designed well. I therefore suggest that a MySQL integration to save the citations would be good for some people and would also open the door for an easy integration of other web apps. I suspect that some people might think this might be overblown which is why I suggest it as an optional feature. I, however, think it would definitely leave room for growth.

Anyways, I am excited to see the openoffice integration.

Nico

Just to put in my grain of salt in there, I concur with all of the above, and would love to see proper Oo-Z integration. Like R.Sheaff I have no programming skills whatsoever, but if you need testers then I'd be happy to oblige...

Jon Rubin

This may be jumping the gun, having just installed RC1 - in the documentation (version history) it says that OpenOffice support is now added. Is this right?
Keep up the great work!

Jon Rubin

Got it, playing with it now. Thanks so much.

moswell

Jon, where did you install the OpenOffice extension? I've been waiting for this extension to give OpenOffice a try.

sean

You can find the extensions linked from the home page and from our documentation pages. Here's the direct link.

moswell

Whoops - should have made myself clearer. I was able to download it, I just don't know where to place it on my computer so that it works.

Ugh, never mind, I'm an idiot. When in doubt, double-click and see what happens. Now I can play with OpenOffice and Zotero together.