http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921174#LetMeFixItMyselfAlways
should help for Word 2007

adamsmith, I don't understand what point you're trying to make with the microsoft URL. Reading the doc, it doesn't seem to bear on the problem of the malfunctioning margins.

Perhaps somebody who has a Windows machine and Word 2007 can verify whether this is just me or whether there is indeed a problem that wants solving. Anybody?

Yes, I know how to adjust the margins and indents of the "Normal" style. When I do that and then drag a Zotero reference into Word and drop it onto a "Normal" paragraph, it still puts the left margin at 0.5 inch with an additional 0.5 inch hanging indent. I think you really do need to get a look at how this works in Word. I quite sympathize with your preference for using Linux and OO.o -- I am a Linux user at the office. But I also teach for the University of Phoenix. A colleague and I are trying to soften the blow of APA 6 for both students and faculty at the Houston Campus, and Zotero certainly does that -- especially with your new APA6 export module. But I don't particularly want to have to tell everybody that Zotero does everything except put the text where it needs to be put, so that they'll have to adjust it manually afterwards. So if you know anybody who has Word 2007 on a Windoze box, please try this out and see whether it's just me or whether it's really an issue at the interface between Zotero and Word.

Sorry, Dan, I didn't mean to imply that he has an obligation to me or to anybody else -- only that, because he seems genuinely interested in helping to figure out what's wrong, he -- or somebody -- will need to look at a Windows machine to be able to diagnose it. Looking at Linux boxes is certainly a preferable pursuit, but the students and faculty I am trying to help don't know how to spell "Linux", let alone use it. I must figure out how to do this in Windows, and I will very much appreciate any assistance that anybody can give.

I apologize for the misunderstanding.

OK - I'll have a look next time I get to a Windows machine (although if anyone else gets there first - for me it will take some time...try to avoid those...) - I still think this has to do with the way the Word Defaults in the "Normal" style are set up, but maybe I'm wrong.

Before, could you try out two things for me, though:
If you use the Word plugin, cite a bunch of items and then create an APA bibliography - do you get the same effect?
If, instead of dragging, you use the "Create Bibliography" function (select items in Zotero and right-click), copy to the clipboard, and then paste into Word - same effect?

OK, so whatever it is, it's less crucial than we thought, which is good.
I'll have a look at the drag&drop feature when I get a chance - if the word plugin does this right I'm a lot less convinced that this is due to Word default specifications.

Hello, I also have the same problem with margins both with dragging and right-clicking method.

In addition to the margin problem, when I "drag" bib info into a single-spaced paragraph, the pasted portion comes out as a double-spaced paragraph.

Also, font comes out differently: dragged portions usually comes in Times Roman, but the rest of my document uses a different font.

Every time I do this "pasting" of the bibliographic information, I have to 1. fix margins, 2. change to single-space, 3. change font.

I would really appreciate any help going about these issues.

I tried to search the forum for a forum but this was the only thread I could find. I'm not a technical person so excuse me if my language is not up to par. I hope I conveyed what I wanted to say.

I use Microsoft Word 2007 and the zotero in Firefox, both the latest version on a PC.

I meant "dragging" --

Thanks for the quick response.

I'm using APA 6th .. and I'm pasting bibliographic entries, yes. From the middle column in zotero.

I don't have Word 2007 here, so I can't fully replicate this, but as a start - make sure you have the different font and spacing set in the style you're using - for me, Zotero uses the respective style of the paragraph it's pasting into.
see e.g. here for word styles:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA102308821033.aspx

I have also experienced this problem on Word 2008 for Mac.

Before discovering this post, I had opened a new discussion related with this one :

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/13951/bibliography-differences-when-rtf-or-clipboard-word-used/#Item_2

I work with Windows Vista, Word 97, use a french version of Zotero.

To create a bibliography, I have the following choices :
- create a RTF file
- create an HTML
- copy to the clipboard
- print

As I explained in my previous post, RTF files look perfect for alignment, but don't take in account some other functions.

From my tests, I would say that the problem occurs with all indented styles, whatever the Word settings are.

Copy to the clipboard or create HTML, when pasting into Word, give the same ugly result.

I modified the Word paragraph default as follow :

left margin: 0
first line indent: +1.25cm
before paragraph: 0
after paragraph: 10 pt
space-line: multiple 1.15

I opened a new file, wrote some text which used this default settings, pasted the bibliography after the text

The bibliography's paragraph settings are completely different than the text's ones:

left margin: -1.27 cm
first line indent : -1.27 cm
before paragraph: 13.2 pt
after paragraph: 0
space-line: at least 13.2 pt

Certainly related to that too, I noticed a problem inserting "display=block", (reported in the post : http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/14037/insert-linefeed-in-citation-style/#Item_3)

In this case, the block paragraph settings are

left margin: 0 cm
first line indent : +1.27 cm
before paragraph: 0 pt
after paragraph: 0
space-line: at least 13.2 pt

In this case too, if selecting create RTF file, the block parts are well aligned :

Angebault Christophe. « L'exception d'Alceste, ou comment le classicisme a pu servir
------à la modernité » [En ligne]. Dix-septième siècle, 2004, vol. 2/2004, n° 223, p.
------183-198.
------URL : < http://www.cairn.info/revue-dix-septieme-siecle-2004-2-page-183.htm >
------DOI : < 10.3917/dss.042.0183 > [consulté le 27 août 2009]

It seems that Zotero and Word have some communication problems

Just some more feedback...

I too have this problem with Word 2010 on Windows 7 64bit, dragging into either Word or an email using Outlook. It's especially problematic in 'draft' view (which I normally use) as the text goes off screen to the left. In 'print' view it is better as it goes into the margin area, but it can still be seen there with a decent margin size.

Yet, dragging into Googledocs is better (it shifts a very little to the right, but that is better than to the left as in Word).

I use the drag feature when doing preliminary work, e.g. making lists of books to consult, etc, as I drag from Zotero into the body of a document, but not into footnotes at that stage. While the plugin for proper citations as footnotes works fine, it would be great to have the drag feature working in Word without the margin problem, as well as for emails.

This glitch persists in 3.0.1 FF, with Word 2011 on a Mac.

I still have the glitch as described above with Chicago styles when copy/pasting: outdented by 0.5 inch and 10 pt rather than 12. Paste is single-spaced.

If I switch to MLA, I also have outdented by 0.5 inch and 10 pt rather than 12 but paste is double-spaced throughout. And it also changes the font from Times New Roman to Times, tout court.

In APA, same as MLA, except font remains Times New Roman.

In AMA, the margin is correct and entries are single-spaced, but font also shifted to 10 pt Times, tout court, and the turn-overs are not indented but flush at the margin.

What gives with these margin and font problems? Any chance they'll be fixed?

which styles does it occur with?

right, so those are all the indented styles, same as above.

See if setting
export.quickCopy.compatibility.word
to true in the hidden preferences of Zotero
http://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/hidden_preferences
makes a difference.