Is it possible to change the font of the citation one copies to clipboard in Zotero?

fusion809
I usually use Zotero to create my citations by getting it to copy citations to clipboard and then pasting the resulting text into my documents but the text it copies to clipboard by default is size 12pt Times New Roman and I'd like it to be calibri (body) 11pt.
  • adamsmith
    The font/size of the pasted text depends on Word processor settings, not on Zotero. If your default font in Word is Calibri 11 that should be what you get when you paste.
  • fusion809
    I can tell you that it isn't for me, I even opened a new word document to be sure and pasted the text from zotero and it was Times New Roman 12pt unlike the Calibri 11pt that's Word's default (if default and the font used prior to any user-enforced formatting is performed is synonymous)
  • adamsmith
    What happens if you copy&paste text e.g. from the forum here or from notepad?
  • fusion809
    The text becomes Calibri 11pt, just like Word's default.
  • adamsmith
    not sure what to tell you. Times New Roman does not appear in the Zotero source code. If pasted citations from Zotero appear in TNR that happens at some point after Zotero.
    Could be how Windows handles the clipboard or could be something in Word but the font is most definitely not set by Zotero (and hence can't be changed there). My suspicion would still be a Word style setting (along the lines described here: http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/word_default_font - though note that article is principally about a different issue).
  • DWL-SDCA
    What if you "Paste Special" : Unformatted text?

    You may also want to place your cursor within the pasted text and then look to see what style Word has assigned. Whether Paste Special works or doesn't, I believe that you will find that the pasted has been assigned something other than Normal style. THe simple thing if that is the case is to change the face of that style from Times New Roman to Calibri.
  • aurimas
    edited June 26, 2013
    admasmith is right that there is no indication of font type or font size in the clipboard when copying from Zotero. you can check it using something like InsideClipboard Word of course has the "smart paste" feature which is supposed to allow you to keep source or destination formatting. Unfortunately, it isn't that smart with HTML content.

    Nonetheless, after much digging around through all the obscure options in Word I found a solution for you. You will not be able to tell Word to keep destination formatting, but you can tell Word which font it should default to when pasting HTML content.

    To do this (I'm using Office 2010 btw, so this may vary), go to File -> Options -> Advanced -> General (section) -> Web Options... -> Fonts and change the Proportional Font for English/Western European/Other Latin script to whatever you want.

    Edit: regarding DWL-SDCA's comment. Unfortunately that also gets rid of indentations, italics, bold, etc.

    Edit2: and just to clarify, the pasted text is in fact assigned the "Normal" style, which is set to Calibri 11, but the text is actually Times New Roman 12. So as illogical as all of this sounds, I see the same exact thing as described above on my end.

    Edit3: here's a little guide (for a seemingly unrelated issue) http://www.msoutlook.info/question/521
  • dstillman
    Copying from Firefox itself, it's actually different for me depending on whether there's any formatting in the text. If I copy the middle of a post here, it pastes into Word as unmodified Normal style text (Cambria). If I include a username or timestamp in the copied text, the pasted text is "Normal + (Latin) Times".
  • aurimas
    Yes, it doesn't seem to be as straight-forward. Seems that any sort of HTML formatting besides things like bold, italics, anchors will make word treat this as HTML content.

    I also noticed that Chrome inserts a font definition into copied HTML, which appears to be the font used to display the text in the browser (e.g. the default font used by Chrome)
  • fusion809
    @aurimas thank you so much! That worked perfectly!
  • matthewmcdonnell
    edited September 2, 2013
    Thanks to aurimas. However this would not work for a mac so I did a quick check and found this:
    http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/productivity/take-control-of-your-macs-clipboard/

    easy thing here: go to edit in Word 2001 and click on paste and match formatting. Worked perfectly for me... I hope.

    My problem is that I will go to "Z" stand alone and right click to save a bib to the clipboard. Mac 10.8.4 latest version of all sorts of stuff but this is a late 2008 model. Anyways when I go into word and try to paste the reference it comes out times font 10 and is shifted past the 0 point so it becomes -6 or so and is all messed up. I still feel like this is a "z" issue but I could be wrong as I dont know for a fact.
    The good thing is I have quickly found a work around because of the forums here, so thank you Z and all here!

    MM

    Edit*** Well it works when you click it or use the quick keys of shift, option, command, v
    I did try the thing with the system preferences and that did not work for me. I even tried to name it Paste and Match Formatting and that did make a change in the drop down menu to commandV but when I hit the two it did the same thing.
    Could be the word for mac but it could be Z. I never had this problem until recently and I have had the word 2011 for a long time. Never had the problem with the first couple of versions of Z stand alone either. So now you know what I know.
  • adamsmith
    That's a different issue and there is a lengthy, IIRC unresolved thread on this - maybe someone else remembers where it is.
    It only occurs with certain citation styles (it's either indented ones or styles using second-field-align options, i.e. numeric styles) and it's a function of how Word interprets what Zotero puts into the clipboard, so it's not clear whose "fault" it is.
  • z8080
    Would it be possible for future version of the Word plugin to create a "Zotero" style in Word, such that all citations (as well as the bibliography) are rendered with the font settings included in that style?

    Otherwise, it seems that if the Normal style is changed for a given document, the existing Zotero in-text citations remain in the old font, and only new citations will be in the font corresponding to the updated Normal style.
  • BobbyBrown02
    edited July 7, 2014
    I seem to be having the same issue but whenever I copy and paste a bibliography from the clipboard into word, it doesn't apply the word default font (which is Times New Roman 12) but Times 10. Where does word get Times 10 from? Do you have any idea?

    edit: I found out! When copying from the clipboard word does not use the default font but the font you select in your web options in the word settings. That was where Times 10 was set as default.
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