Cannot leave citation field in LibreOffice Writer

Konzertheld

Hi everyone,

I use the Zotero connector with LibreOffice Writer. After inserting a citation, I often cannot type after or before the inserted special field because Writer assumes I am still inside the special field. I do NOT want to edit the citation, I just want to continue writing but I can’t. It sounds stupid but I can’t find a way to add text after / before the field. Sometimes it works bust most of the time it does not. How do I leave the field?

LibreOffice version is 7.3.0.3. Zotero version is 5.0.96.3. Operating System is Manjaro Linux with the Gnome Desktop.

adomasven

This is a known issue. You can try posting one the document foundation bug report that you are affected, which might draw somebody's attention who could fix it, but it didn't help in the past.

DWL-SDCA

@Konzertheld Please do post to the link above. This is a LibreOffice bug that has long been ignored or, perhaps, ranked as minimally important. It can only help if new comments are posted about this frustrating issue.

Konzertheld

I see. Thanks for your answers. With over 6000 bugs for Writer alone, it's probably faster to spin up MS Office on a virtual machine.

Konzertheld

Update: The currenty advised workaround is to use bookmarks instead of reference marks. Indeed, I cannot reproduce the probems with bookmark-style citations. Are there any drawbacks other than not being able to use them as footnotes?

(Source: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/cannot-exit-the-cross-reference/45964 )

DWL-SDCA

I think that you will be exchanging one problem for another. Even with this reference-field-extension problem, I still use ReferenceMarks with LO documents.

See:

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected

"Bookmarks can cause errors if accidentally modified, so they should only be used if compatibility between Word and LibreOffice is necessary"

edit: Rereading the Ask LO link ... this is a recommendation by one LO user in 2019 and is not endorsed by anyone since.

DWL-SDCA

I confess that when I must edit my LO document near a live ReferenceMark, I find it easier and quicker to delete the Zotero Mark and a few words before and after it. It only takes a few seconds to retype the text and reinsert the Zotero field. I've learned to accept my annoyance with the Document Foundation bug gatekeepers who degrade the importance of this LO bug. That doesn't mean that my recommendation for LO users to report the bug isn't important. It might help if all LO users here report the bug to the link given by @adomasven above.

Until the bug gatekeepers understand that writers of technical documents want to use LO and that this bug affects a wider population than Zotero users; this will remain a low priority.

rutyggi

Is it possible we still have this bug?

it's very frustrating :(

currently I type enter to go to a new line (this seems to break the "we are still inside the citation thing), type a space, type left arrow, and then type backspace to go back to the previous line

DWL-SDCA

This is _not_ a Zotero bug. Please re-read my comment immediately above. Please contact the Document Foundation and report this bug in LO Writer.

rutyggi

I understood that!

Is there no workaround that Zotero can put in place?

gwyn-hopkins

I have also had a similar behaviour in MSword before. So, for both LO and MSword I usually turn off the track change mode (does seem to help occasionally) and preempt the problem by double spacing and going back one with the left arrow key before inserting the reference.

uefmatty

Quoting Commit Notification, I've """committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/384a80fc56e75e3d1ee18ffc303db85490716829

tdf#81720 Don't expand Reference Marks

It will be available in 7.6.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback."""

It should fix the issue, please do give it a try!

Konzertheld

I can confirm the linked fix in master fixed the problem for me. (I used the 7.6.0.1-1 build of libreoffice-dev-bin from the Arch User Repository.)

rutyggi

Thank you very much!

I'll test it when 7.6.0 will be released in mid-August.

lrbrouwer

I'm still experiencing this issue in Libreoffice Writer 7.6.5.2 from the Fedora rpm repo. Incredibly frustrating, help would be appreciated.

adomasven

Unfortunately the developers had to revert the change as it broke some other functionality. There currently isn't a timeline for when it will be fixed.

tallish_paul

Sorry if this is idiotically obvious, or seems over-complicated, but the bug provoked this discussion and frustration for some people. My workaround is quick, now almost second nature, and I am not irritated by the bug:

1) Trapped in field after citation:
Delete trapped characters; with caret (text cursor, position) directly after the citation, press 'enter' (which creates carriage return and takes the caret down to a new line and out of the Zotero citation field); on the new line press 'space bar' to create blank space; press 'left arrow' key to move caret back one position to the start of that blank space (which is also start of the new line); press 'backspace' key which deletes carriage return and takes the caret back to the original line (caret should now be directly behind Zotero citation field); press the 'right arrow' key to move the caret forward one position to the start of that blank space; start typing.

2) Trapped in field before citation:
Delete trapped characters; with caret (text cursor, position) directly before the citation, press 'enter' (which creates carriage return and takes the caret and citation down to a new line); press 'up arrow' key to move the caret up to the original line (and out of the Zotero citation field); press 'space bar' to create blank space; press 'right arrow' key to move caret down to the start of the new line and directly in front of the Zotero citation field; press 'backspace' key, which deletes the original carriage return and takes the caret and citation back up to the original line; press the 'left arrow' key to take the caret to the front of the blank space; start typing.

Please tell me if there's an even easier workaround! In spite of these little challenges, Zotero keeps doing its job exceptionally well. The people that do this are outstanding IMHO.

oiluig

I have been struggling with this for a long hour and finally found another quick and dirt solution:

1 - Just highlight with the mouse the citation you want to change and some adjacent text which is not highlighted (one letter is enough)

2 - Click on the citation button and replace (or retype) your citation (if you want to remove the grey highlight) or just leave blank (if you want to remove the write protected text) and push enter.

3 - Replace the adjacent text that has been removed (see 1)