Word plugin/add-in working, but Zotero says it isn't installed...

laurelel

Hi, I have the opposite problem of what the troubleshooting and multiple other posts seem to say. I'm using the Zotero Word Plugin/Add-in, and it seems to be behaving fine thus far (although I haven't created the bibliography yet). My options for in-text citations update accordingly once I add a paper to my library, etc. But I was trying to find out how to get the plugin to include suffixes in the citations for two different papers with the same lead author and year (still haven't figured that out yet...) and noticed something odd. In Preferences>Cite>Word Processors, it says "The Microsoft Word add-in is not currently installed." And there's a button to install it. But...it's already installed. I'm not sure if this will cause problems or if I can just ignore it. I worry that if I re-install it, I'll lose the connections/citations I've already inserted.

Apologies if this was already addressed somewhere, but I couldn't find my particular situation in the documentation or other forums. (EDIT: I can see now how to manually add a suffix (or suppress author) if I click on the citation in the popup in Word, but I'm noticing it adds a space between the year and the suffix, which isn't standard from what I've seen in journal articles. Couldn't find any guidance on removing that space yet.)

Currently using Windows 10 on PC, and my version of Zotero is up to date. I believe I have Office 16, if that's relevant. Thanks!

dstillman

The Microsoft Word add-in is not currently installed.

If the plugin is working for you, you can ignore that.

I can see now how to manually add a suffix (or suppress author) if I click on the citation in the popup in Word, but I'm noticing it adds a space between the year and the suffix, which isn't standard from what I've seen in journal articles.

No, you're misunderstanding that field. That's for adding suffix strings to the entire citation — it's not for disambiguation, which Zotero does for you automatically based on the requirements of the citation style. If you're adding a letter there, you should remove it and make sure your authors are all entered in exactly the same way.

laurelel

Thanks for the reply, @dstillman - good to know I can ignore that quirk as long as it's working okay! For the twin author/year issue, the problem is that it isn't actually adding the suffixes automatically for me. I tried testing it out, and it's inserting the full name of the first author instead for some reason (which doesn't clarify anything, given that it's the same author for both papers, not to mention that it's not an accepted format). I've published with a journal that uses this style before, and the guidelines said to use the letter designation attached to the year for cases like this. Is there something I'm missing that I need to do to trigger the automated suffix/letter designation? Thanks in advance!