Word plug-in disappeared, tried several strategies, please help

t.hrynick

Hello, my Zotero word plug-in has disappeared from Microsoft Word (Office 365). When I try to open up a document (which I store in One Drive) I am working on (& which I must submit TODAY), word informs me that the document has 'unreadable content' which I assume has something to do with the citations I've already included in the paper. I have tried following strategies I saw elsewhere in forum such as reinstalling the plug-in (from Zotero > preferences > Word processors) as well as enabling macros in word. Neither have worked. I did a little explore in Word (Options > add-ins) to find that Zotero is listed under the 'Disabled application add-ins' but there's no way to enable it again. Please help, I'm meant to be submitting today and just needed to make a few changes and generate a reference list and clean it up.

Thanks

adomasven

In a pinch you could try creating a new user account on your computer and see if it works there.

For a proper fix: does it work in a new document? Do you get any errors if you open a new document/and or try to cite with Zotero in it? If it works well you should follow debugging broken documents steps for your existing doc. If you do get errors in a new document try deleting Normal.dotm starting Word, then reinstall the Word plugin from Zotero Preferences -> Cite -> Word Processors.

t.hrynick

Hi thanks for your response.

I am not able to create a new user account on my machine as it belongs to my employer and it has been set up for me/my account only by our IT services (due to unusual circumstances, I am unable to get support from them today).

No, the plug-in did not work in a new document. I tried deleting the normal.dotm and then reinstalling World plugin via Zotero again, but that did not work either :(. How long should the reinstall take? It seems to happen very quickly, as if it hasn't actually done anything. It tells me that 'Installation was successful' after just one second of my clicking the button to reinstall.

adomasven

The installation is indeed instantaneous although sometimes due to custom configurations in Word the automatic installer is not enough. Do you still get prompts about unreadable document contents? Have you tried restarting the computer?

Did you try these instructions https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_troubleshooting#zotero_tab_does_not_appear_in_the_word_ribbon ?

t.hrynick

Okay, I think I've gotten the Zotero plug-in to reappear back in Word via the Developer tools in word as per the instructions you sent me. Thank you so much for that, I hadn't come across that.

However, I am still getting the prompt about unreadable contents when I try to open the document I am working on. It asks me if I trust the developer and want to continue to which I respond yes. It then creates a new document (Document1) which has all my content, but for some reason, it is not the original file. It seems I will have to 'save as' a new document each time I close and reopen it and am prompted with the unreadable contents problem.

I just experimented opening another document which has Zotero citations and I was not prompted with this error, so I wonder if it has anything to do with Zotero at all. If that is the case, that may be out of your remit for supporting me, but if you have any tips, I would be grateful.

Oh, also, I've tried restarting and that hasn't fixed the problem.

adomasven

Try the debugging broken documents steps to fix the original doc