File corrupted

Ferroshiba
Hello, I was wondering if anyone would be able to help me with this problem. I had my Word document, and then I highlighted everything and hit F9 in attempt to update MS Word's figure numbers. Afterwards, the Word doc froze, and when I tried to open it up again, all my text disappeared. It's clearly still there, as implied by the file size, but it won't display.

If I hit Alt+F9, then that restores my text, but with a bunch of random Zotero gibberish dispersed, like the abstracts of the cited papers and coding. If I convert it to a PDF, it outputs " Error! Bookmark not defined." Word still recognizes it as only 4 words though (the error message), as shown on the bottom left corner. Here's an example of what the F9 renders:

[Some part of my original text] ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"CRPO7l6P","properties":{"formattedCitation":"\\super [3\\uc0\\u8211{}5]\\nosupersub{}","plainCitation":"[3–5]","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":844,"uris": ...

Is there a way I can recover my document easily? Or am I stuck trying to sift through all the pages to remove all the random gibberish and redoing all my references?

Many thanks for the help!
  • dstillman
    Alt-F9 toggles the display of field codes on and off. If you're seeing "ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION", Word is displaying field codes. You just need to toggle them off to display the formatted citation text instead. Any other problem in the document is unrelated to Zotero.

    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/word_field_codes
  • Ferroshiba
    Thanks for your reply, distillman. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to fix it. I tried following the link as well. Unchecking “Show field codes instead of their values” didn't seem to help. Alt-F9 toggles between no text and my document with the stuff dispersed in it as in the example. If it clarifies anything, there are braces {these things} placed around my document from start to finish.

    If I click "Refresh"under the Zotero tab, this pops up:

    The Zotero field code corresponding to this citation, which tells Zotero which item in your library this citation represents, has been corrupted. Would you like to reselect the item?
    Clicking "No will delete the field codes for citations containing this item, preserving the citation text but potentially deleting it from your bibliography.
    Yes No Cancel

    ---

    Clicking Yes brings me to:

    You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?
    Clicking "Yes" will prevent Zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citations, switch styles, or modify the item to which it refers. Clicking "No will erase your changes.
    Original: [16] Modified:
    Yes No

    ---

    Clicking Yes cycles through all the citations and then brings me eventually to:

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    Would you like to view troubleshooting instructions?
    Yes No

    ---

    Clicking No at any point brings me to the above immediately.
  • dstillman
    Alt-F9 toggles between no text and my document with the stuff dispersed in it as in the example.
    Right, but that's not a Zotero problem. It sounds like you maybe somehow ended up with all of your document text within a Word field, but Zotero didn't do that. The only part of this related to Zotero is that toggling field codes will toggle between formatted citations and the field codes Zotero uses to store data, but if the rest of your document is corrupted, that's not a Zotero problem and isn't something we can help you with.

    Your best bet is likely to restore from a backup of the document, assuming you have one.
Sign In or Register to comment.