zotero very slow in long document
Hi,
I am about to finish a long project. Initially I had separate documents for all the chapters. Now that I've put them together (about 300 pages) zotero is very slow in updating or adding new citations. It takes up to two minutes and sometimes Zotero gets stuck.
In shorter documents citations are still added or updated in a blink. I tried reinstalling the zotero word for mac integration, but it didn't help. Any ideas what might cause this problem?
(I'm using Word for Mac 2011, Firefox 22.0, and Zotero 4.0.8 on a macbook air with a 1.7 GHz Intel Core and 4GB memory, running on OS X 10.8.4)
Thanks,
Markus
I am about to finish a long project. Initially I had separate documents for all the chapters. Now that I've put them together (about 300 pages) zotero is very slow in updating or adding new citations. It takes up to two minutes and sometimes Zotero gets stuck.
In shorter documents citations are still added or updated in a blink. I tried reinstalling the zotero word for mac integration, but it didn't help. Any ideas what might cause this problem?
(I'm using Word for Mac 2011, Firefox 22.0, and Zotero 4.0.8 on a macbook air with a 1.7 GHz Intel Core and 4GB memory, running on OS X 10.8.4)
Thanks,
Markus
( https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/29377/large-projects/ )
The first place is in actually getting the citations out of Word. This is reasonably fast in LibreOffice and Word for Windows, but in Word for Mac the amount of time to retrieve information about each individual citation scales with document length (not actually the number of citations), which can make things much slower. I have an idea for a potential workaround here; it involves changing the way Zotero communicates with Word in the hope that this performance issue doesn't affect every way we can get citation information out.
The second place is in collecting information about references. This would typically cause slowness when inserting the first citation after restarting Firefox or pressing the Refresh button, but shouldn't be a problem when adding new citations.
The final place is updating the document itself. If you use a numbered style and insert a new citation in the middle of the document, Zotero has to go through and update all subsequent numbers, which can be slow.
With a debug ID, I can provide you with a better idea of what's happening, but it's likely that the only presently available solution is to break up your document into smaller pieces.
As I mentioned, I had different docs for my chapters and maybe I should have kept it so until the very last changes have been done. But then I also wanted to get it together in one doc to avoid last-minute formatting issues and in order to get cross-references etc. ready.
Here is the debug ID, D2137337520.
If there is no immediate solution, I will simply extract the bits that need revision and insert them again when they are done. At this stage of my work (only revision) this is not a big issue. Any help is still welcome, of course. :)
Thanks!
If you happen to figure out the workaround you mentioned, I'd be happy to try it. Otherwise I'll just continue extracting bits.
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22622/inserting-citations-is-very-slow/#Item_13
The best solution was to work, in LibreOffice, with a master document and chapter documents. You then need to edit your in-between chapters crossreferences manually, though. But it's feasible.
If you're sure the classic insert citation is faster, it's a bug, and a debug ID might help us figure out what's going on.
Quote:
"There are, obviously, better ways to work with large, demanding documents than WYSWYG processors like Word and LO - markdown, re-structured Text, LaTeX, all of which can be integrated with Zotero in one way or the other.
At some point in the future - but not anytime very soon - Zotero may also get a better RTF scanning feature, which would allow you to just enter simple codes and then have Zotero fill in the references at the end. "
see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22622/inserting-citations-is-very-slow/#Item_13
So an easy workaround (I assume) that would save me from immense frustration would be to create a preference option to disable the Cited list.
Please respond, if only to let me know that this suggestion won't fly, as I have already suggested it twice with no response from anyone:
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22622/inserting-citations-is-very-slow/#Item_14
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/30293/option-to-disable-cited-items-in-word-plugin/#Item_1
Thanks.
Thank you, Simon.
Debug ID: D1763696038
Mac OSX 10.9.2
Zotero Standalone
Word 2011 14.4.1
Adamsmith: what processors are the best with Zotero? Is LibreOffice that much faster?
Other advantage of LibreOffice is that it works nicely with our ODF-scan add-on http://zotero-odf-scan.github.io/zotero-odf-scan/
But there are obviously advantages to using Word, so I'm not telling anyone "just use LibreOffice."
After deleting my list of references (bibliography) at the end of the document, things got much more speedy. So consider deleting yours (if you have one already). Insert the bibliography just before document submission. I hope that helps others.
You could work with the ODF-scan markers I link to above, but you might find them too unwieldy. But obviously no lag in a document that has just markers.
This is risk free, it will save a copy of your document converted to markers.