[Beta] For which workflow is "add note" in Word?

zuphilip

In the new beta version of Zotero I also tried out the new function "Add note" in Word. I was expecting that besides the text from the note also a citation to the parent item is generated, but that is not the case. Is this expected? Moreover, I cannot add all notes from one/several source(s) with a click. This leaves me a little puzzled about this function now. I don't see for which workflow the "Add note" function in Word currently is tailored for. Any hints?

gduffner

Hmm. When I tried it, the citation was created, however in front of the note, I'd have expected it rather following the note.

dstillman

"Add Note" simply inserts the note you've selected, with any citations remaining as active citations. The citations themselves get added to the note in Zotero, either 1) from the annotations you add or 2) from citations you add using the "Insert Citation" button or by dragging in an item when editing a note in a separate window. (A future version will prepopulate the citation dialog with the parent item when using Insert Citation in a note from the PDF reader.)

No citation is added for the note itself. I suppose we could consider automatically adding a citation for the parent item if adding a child note and the note contains no other citation to the parent item, but that's not the current behavior

zuphilip

Ah, I see. Yes, it makes much more sense with notes created by the new "Add note from Annotations" function in Zotero which includes the relevant citation itself.

I have tried it with some of my notes, which I created manually and without any citations in Zotero. Such child notes are part of an parent item and I would expect that a citation in this case would then been added in Word as well. I don't see that any danger when doing that and the citation can still been deleted in Word for any (rare) case when this is not wanted. Thus, I appreciate any further work into this!

For example one strategy after a literature search and reading the documents can be to make short summaries for each source i.e. attach one or several notes to each of them. I would do this as a Zotero note and not as a PDF note. Then a way to use all these notes as a starting point for writing your publication could be handy.

Maybe also some way to add several notes from the same items and/or from all items of a collection could be useful. At least I know from Citavi that they have several options to insert categories and all knowledge elements/quotations from there (e.g. https://www.citavi.com/de/videos?id=HDt1cbWi5xY for inspiration).

bjohas

I'd love to have notes to have the parent item code - with the new PDF editor, the info is in the metadata already. I don't use Word, but have wanted a way of 'quick-copying notes' into google docs, so that the citation is preserved. We're doing this using a work-around with ZotFile, where the relevant item keys are inserted, which can then be converted to a citation in Google Docs. (Sorry, this is a bit opaque)