never created an account - lost references

maryphan

So I built references on Zotero and had those references linked on a Word doc for a manuscript I am working on. I no longer have the computer that had Zotero and I unfortunately never created an account. I have a copy of the Word doc that has Zotero's references and when I right click, I have the option to update field, edit field & toggle field codes. When I click update field, nothing happens. Is there anyway I can retrieve my references from any of those options when I right click? I am in a bit of a pickle and any help would be amazing.

dstillman

Sorry to hear that. We responded to you on Twitter, but just to note here as well, for existing documents, you can continue to use the items already in the document by selecting them from the Cited section of the citation dialog. To get them back into a Zotero library, see Reference Extractor (for Zotero-created docs) or AnyStyle, as explained on Importing Formatted Bibliographies.

Note that items you extract back into Zotero via one of those tools will be different from the ones already in existing documents, so you’d still want to use the Cited section when possible in existing documents to prevent Zotero from treating them as separate items when generating citations.