Zotero bibliography unlinked from text when copied and pasted

yedamyi

Hello,

I have a problem with retaining linked in-text citations when I try to copy and paste my text to another document; they all get unlinked.

I usually use google doc and word to write drafts, and when I try to combine different sections of a draft into one document, all the in-text citations get unlinked. I have to relink all the citations one by one, which takes up a lot of time. This is problematic because my workflow requires me to keep separate files for separate sections of the same draft and combine them when needed. I've tried copying text from google doc to google doc, from word to google doc, from google doc to word, and from word to word. They all don't work.

In order to troubleshoot this issue, I've tried suggestions by jillyb23 December 17, 2011 and Rivergirl2 March 22, 2014 in this discussion: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/96801/#Comment_96801
The suggestions didn't work.

Can you help me with this issue?

dstillman

Copying between word processors isn't supported, so don't try to do that. See Moving Documents Between Word Processors if you want to do that.

Copying between two Word documents absolutely works — always, and always has — so if that's not working for you then there's some more fundamental problem. I suspect you're just mistaken there, or saving in some format other than .docx and just losing active fields generally, or doing something else very unusual. If you really think that's not working, please describe exactly what you're doing, starting with two new, empty documents, and how you're determining there's a problem.

To copy between Google Docs, or within a single Google Doc, you need to have the Zotero Connector installed and enabled in your browser. Otherwise any citations will be unlinked. Same for any co-authors.

yedamyi

Hello,

Sorry to get back to you late. I was caught up with work.

1. I followed your suggestion. I opened two new word documents and inserted one citation in one and another citation in the other. Then, I opened another new document. I copied the two citations from the two documents into the third new document. The bibliography worked fine.

2. I tested the same thing on google doc. I opened two new google doc pages, inserted one citation in one and another citation in the other. Then, I opened a third new google doc and copied the two citations into the third doc. However, this time it didn't work. An error message popped up telling me that the citations were unlinked.

It'd be great if you could help me understand what the problem is.

Thank you.

adomasven

How are you copying and pasting between Google Docs? Are you using the same browser? Are you using keyboard shortcuts or menu options?

yedamyi

I'm using command + c and command + v between Google Docs (I'm a mac user). I'm using Chrome all the time.

I have another question. I exchange word files to share my writing with a collaborator and make revisions in those docs. I noticed that all the citations get unlinked when I get my files back from the person. I feel like I have no option but to change my work flow working with Zotero. Do you have any suggestions? One requirement is that I have to use word docs because the collaborator prefers it.

adomasven

I cannot reproduce the copying problem in Google Chrome. Do you see the problem if you simply insert a citation in a new document, then copy it into another new document? Or is it only when two documents are involved? If so, could you provide the full steps of what you do with the three documents?

If you need to share the document with a Word user you could use the switch word processors option, but it will probably get unwieldy and amongst other things you will likely get formatting issues, so the best option is to just use Word.