Word Plugin: failing to correctly sort edited multiple citations
(I have copied this comment of mine from http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2251/ooo-citation-removereorder-items-from-multiple-sources/#Item_9, as I think this describes faulty behaviour, rather than a feature request)
Originally I thought that multiple citations were never being sorted correctly. I have investigated this problem further and Zotero DOES sort multiple citations if they are entered as a new citation.
However, if a single citation is changed to a multiple, or more references are added to an existing multiple citation, the additions are NOT sorted.
I am using Zotero 1.0.3, Word plugin 1.0b3 and APA style
(out of interest, how can I tell which version of the Word plugin I am using? I just reinstalled it to make sure I had the latest, but there must be an easier way?)
Originally I thought that multiple citations were never being sorted correctly. I have investigated this problem further and Zotero DOES sort multiple citations if they are entered as a new citation.
However, if a single citation is changed to a multiple, or more references are added to an existing multiple citation, the additions are NOT sorted.
I am using Zotero 1.0.3, Word plugin 1.0b3 and APA style
(out of interest, how can I tell which version of the Word plugin I am using? I just reinstalled it to make sure I had the latest, but there must be an easier way?)
I absolutely agree that the automatic sort function is important. But I also want to emphasize the significance of the ability to arrange and rearrange the order. Furthermore, at least I constantly add or delete items from citations. At the moment I have to redo the citation since I am not able to rearrange the items (the same problem occurs when I want the citation to be sorted).
First a ticket for the issue with alphabetization:
https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/1002
Second a new feature for toggling alphabetization off:
https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/1001
I use a Windows computer with Microsoft Word and just reinstalled the Word plugin to make sure that I have the most recent version.
thanks
Unfortunatly, I have not found the option Tjowens and tonyc2001 are talking about. After opening a new word document and adding a new citation which I turn into a multiple source citation, I can not see the option.
Just to be clear: I only see the option to sort the citation when I create a new citation as multiple. If I edit it either way (either from single to multiple, or adding to an existing multiple), then the option isn't there.
I cant find the option. My approach is the following: Click Insert Citation from the plugin in Word which opens the dialog to with a list of all my collection on the left side and all my items on the right side. On the bottom of this dialog are a couple of buttoms. I click on the bottom ""Multiple sources" which extends the dialog on the right side adding a list of the items I want to have in the same citation. This list is empty until I add items. I canot find the option about sorting anywhere in this dialog regardless what I do.
thanks for your help.
Tonyc this is a known issue. One of the tickets mentioned in this thread should resolve it.
Mark agreed, the other ticket mentioned in this thread should address this one.
>this is a known issue. One of the tickets mentioned in this thread should resolve it.
here
https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/1002
they say that the problem has been fixed, but it does not seem the case, at least for me.
i'm using zotero 2.0 with MS word plugin.
edited multiple citations are NOT reordered.
i think this is a major problem.
any advice?
The ticket mentioned by carloreve refers to alphabetical sorting. However, in many journals (at leat in the physical sciences) numerical references are used, such as:
1. Smith, First reference, 2008.
2. Keller, Second one, 2009.
3. Adam, The third, 2005.
The order is that found in the text, for example:
In this work we follow Smith (1) who revised the work by Keller (2) and Adam (3). It was assumed (1,3) that ...
Now if I want to edit the last citation to include 2, it should now read (1-3) (required by many journal styles) but I end up with (1,3,2), and there is no way to change this behavior other than reentering the whole multiple citation (or, I did not find any ...). The request, thus, is to allow for more flexible ordering of multiple citations, including changing the sorting when editing the citation. By the way, a resizable multiple citation window would be fine.
(Edited) I am using Zotero 2.0b5, word plugin 1.0b4, word 2003, ff 3.5 on Win XP x64 SP2
Regards,
Fernando
using Zotero 2.0b5 and a MS Word Plugin I find the same problem as fmolina and carloreve:
automatic reordering of references does not happen for multiple entries, neither in alphabetical, nor in numerical format.
any suggestion would be highly appreciated.
radek
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3579/multiple-citation-numbering-unpredictable-wrong/
This would seem to be the starting point for identifying the problem, so ... what style are you folks using?
I am using the Americal Chemical Society style, updated 6/4/2009
Fernando
this bug makes zotero use very annoying during writing.
i hope we will find a solution soon.
carlo
And if it were possible to manually change the order, that would still be much appreciated.
As pointed out by tonyc2001 in the original post, sorting works occasionally but not when the citations are edited, so I was getting things like "(21,22,7)".
Looking at the field codes in Word, the correctly sorted citations started with
{ ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"sort":true,"citationItems"...
whereas the unsorted lacked the "sort":true command even though they had the "keep citations ordered" box checked. I managed to correct the sorting by un-checking the box, closing and reopening the "Edit citation" window and then re-checking it. As you can imagine it took ages (but much less than re-entering them all in order).
Would it be possible to change the plugin to include the "sort":true command by default in all citation field codes, whether they are single/multiple items, edited or not?
Thanks
Unless you're in a hurry, I'd just wait for Zotero 2.1 (currently in beta) where this should be fixed.
For what it's worth, this is probably because the item types are different (assuming you're citing Williamson's '75 and '85 books and the '79 article), but that doesn't make it right, it's just a likely explanation.
I presume you don't mean 2.1 alpha (which, like the letter, precedes/preceded beta) but the final version - no there is no eta - but 2.1b is pretty stable already. A bunch of people are using it - you should just make sure to keep better back-ups if you do.