Word intergration with wine
Hi,
I am trying to get MS word 2007 working under wine (crossover office to be exact) on my Ubuntu 10.04 alpha machine. I seem to be able to get word to work as well as get the pluggins installed but get a "Word could not communicate with zotero. Please ensure Firefox is running and try again" error.
I suspect this is due to some functionality that is missing under wine. I have looked into the source code for zotero but can't seem to find where this error is thrown (from VBA macro?).
I am trying to get MS word 2007 working under wine (crossover office to be exact) on my Ubuntu 10.04 alpha machine. I seem to be able to get word to work as well as get the pluggins installed but get a "Word could not communicate with zotero. Please ensure Firefox is running and try again" error.
I suspect this is due to some functionality that is missing under wine. I have looked into the source code for zotero but can't seem to find where this error is thrown (from VBA macro?).
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4129/zotero-with-word-2007-running-over-wine-or-crossover-proposes-a-fix/#Item_1
One way to try this is to run also Firefox with Wine and see if it works. If it does, then it is only a problem with interprocess communication between Zotero plugin running on wine and Zotero running natively.
I am running Firefox under Wine as well. I have tried with both zotero 1.0 and 2.0 and neither seem to be working. Looking at the code, wine 1.0 plugins communicated via SOAP, this should in theory work.
However I am unable to find the corresponding code in the 2.0 plugin. Are there VB macros hidden away in Zotero.dot that check if Firefox is running? In particular what piece of code throws the "Word could not communicate with zotero. Please ensure Firefox is running and try again" error?
firefox.exe -silent -ZoteroIntegrationAgent WinWord
-ZoteroIntegrationCommand <command>
(all on one line) where <command> is one of
addBibliography
addCitation
editCitation
editBibliography
refresh
removeCodes
setDocPrefs
There is actually code in Zotero.dot to do this, but if the FindWindow call doesn't work (as is apparently the case under Wine) it will never get activated. You might be able to modify it to work, but first, you might want to make sure that you can get it to work from the command line.
I can get the command line to work and it does add the citation :). However I am still unable to buttons from within Word.
Also I can't run the VB editor as it says that project is un-viewable, however this maybe because my windows hacking skills are minimal.
I was able to hack some of the safegaurds so that I am able to insert a citation. However when I try to insert a second one, I get a "Zotero experienced an error updating your document" error. I will have to dig deeper into the zotero source to see whats causing this and will keep you posted.
just curious, did you make any progress with this?
im getting the "Zotero experienced an error updating your document" message when i try to run the firefox commands from the commandline.. which is a shame since i could ignore the word toolbar by setting up shortcuts in the top-panel had it worked for me.
what version of wine/word are you using?
The command-line firefox.exe calls that Simon mentions above actually work consistently with the new Zotero 2.1 beta (i.e. 2.1beta2), which means you can get Zotero working somewhat in wine.
So if you do the following you can get things working:
1) Install Wine 1.3+. Zotero won't work with the current stable release, which means I had to install the latest development snapshot from here: http://www.winehq.org/download/
I don't think Crossover Linux will work because it keeps applications in separate bottles so Firefox/Office won't be able to communicate.
2) Install the Windows(!) version of Firefox under Wine.
3) Install MS Office under Wine (I've tested with Office 2000).
4) Install the Zotero 2.1+ (I'm on beta2) and the Word 2.1+ Firefox add-ons under Wine.
This will let you run the commands Simon mentions above from the command-line, e.g. doing something like this will work:
% wine firefox.exe -silent -ZoteroIntegrationAgent WinWord -ZoteroIntegrationCommand addCitation
I've also written a custom zotero.dot vb script to replace the official one which will get the toolbar in Office partially working:
4) Download Zotero.dot from http://isitopen.eu.org/jackflap/files/Zotero.dot and drop it in your Word startup folder (%AppData%\Microsoft\Word\Startup) replacing the old Zotero.dot already there. In my case it was located here:
~/.wine/drive_c/users/hayt/Application Data/Microsoft/Word/STARTUP
Issues:
I haven't tested very extensively yet, but the first issue I can see is that the Word toolbar won't be able to hook into the actual document that the button is pressed from. It will always add the citation to the most recent document created, which will make it problematic for managing citations when you're editing more than one document at a time.
This is because the -zoteroIntegrationDocument parameter doesn't seem to work.
I'm testing with the wine 1.42, on debian lenny, and with office 2003.
Both office 2003 and firefox (with zotero extension) install perfectly. However; the zotero plugin indeed gives the 'not communicate' error.
Testing yields that the following indeed gives yields a citation!
% wine firefox.exe -silent -ZoteroIntegrationAgent WinWord -ZoteroIntegrationCommand addCitation
I tried your new Zotero.dot; it works when you have only 1 document open. When you have 2 documents open, it yields an 'error updating your document' error. I do think that it has to do with the inability of the plugin -when it is running under wine that is- to figure out if or what kind of documents are actually open.
Another issue with Zotero under wine has trouble loading an 'existing data directory'. My plan was to use an existing data directory that existed on dropbox, so everything would remain synchronized.
What i'd like to do is to figure out how to actually get it working. This'll probably involve tinkering in the source code of the plugin and/or recompiling the .dll file.
System used: Xubuntu, normal browsing using Firefox and Zotero addin. MS Word 2003 under Wine.
I have downloaded Zotero Standalone, which works fine under Wine (I don't edit documents much on this machine, which I chose the Standalone rather than installing another Firefox). I set the Zotero database to the one I use in Firefox (Preferences > Advanced). Of course, this means I shouldn't run Firefox and the Standalone (in Wine) at the same time, but Zotero even warns me if I do that!
I then downloaded the modified Zotero.dot provided by jackflap, and opened the macros to change references to Firefox into Zotero. I can now use Zotero from within MS Word in Wine.
System: Ubuntu 11.04, Firefox and zotero plugin, wine 1.32 and MS Word 2007 and modified jackflap Zotero.dot (see above how to do this, Visual Basic is hidden away in the list of “all commands” in word 2007).
I don't want to run firefox under wine for editing. Yet, I wish to have both features available, so I opted for standalone solution and Firefox with zotero plug-in running natively for adding references at the same time (unfortunately with sync lag). Both zotero instances sync with my zotero account and for now it seems to be working perfectly (the doubling of disk space does not bother me, and it is probably only for a limited time until a better solution is found). (I also exchanged the Zotero.dot in the zotero installation folder as this seemed to have been copied over when I mucked about with the zotero settings)
Can you please explain what you did in more detail. I have ubuntu 11.1 & wine 1.3 with ms office 2010 installed.I have installed zotero 3 standalone with wine. I have firefox 11 with zotero extension installed on ubuntu. What do i do next. Should i copy the modified zotero.dot file in the startup folder of ms office 2010? Please help
Thanks
Now I'll have less compatibility problems with the other folks at work.
(If only they stopped using EndNote lol)
Native Google chrome connector with Zotero Standalone running on wine worked!! Does it work by TCP/IP sockets? This is quite perfect, to run zotero with M$ word.
*EDIT*
More, with Zotero started from WINE I can make a citation from native openoffice on linux!!!
The oposite I can't do. I mean Zotero for linux to work on Microsoft Office. Could we point it in the Zotero.dot to not to look for the WINE zotero but for the native one?
If we could make MS Office work with native zotero it would be great.
I also installed Zotero Standalone 4 under Wine and downloaded the zotero.dot file from the jackflap link. Then, I opened the file and edited the macros, as forevertheuni says, and then changed the paths from firefox.exe to zotero.exe. It works!
The zotero.dot file for Zotero Standalone is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qz7vthaock9v4nn/Zotero.dot
I wanted to install the word processor from Zotero Standalone preferences but it does not list MS Office but just LibreOffice:
http://i.imgur.com/4MhTmEe.png
http://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_installation
and install it in Standalone under Tools --> Add-ons (but as I said, I strongly doubt you'll get anywhere since the two programs won't be able to talk to each other properly).
I downloaded Word for Windows Plugin 3.1.13 but cannot install it on my Linux Zotero Standalone 4.0.8: http://i.imgur.com/Jw6iKOo.png
I've managed to install Office 2010 and Zotero StandartAlone 2010 under Wine 1.6 side by side... Zotero does recognize my Office installation but when I click to the icons nothing happens.
Since your link has expired could you please upload it somewhere else ... I will try, when I have it to upload it to my personal university homespace...
Thanks a lot
Christos Tsatsis
What do you mean by `Zotero does recognise your Office installation`? How does it recognise it?
And which icons do you mean?
thanks