Editing citations within footnotes in Word

hgilbert
I sometimes try to edit citations within footnotes by placing the cursor within the citation field and clicking on the Zotero Word plug-in's "edit citation" button. When I do so, Zotero opens a pop-up window telling me I must first place the cursor within a citation. This behavior is consistent: I can never edit a citation within a footnote.

There's a fairly straightforward workaround: I can cut and paste the citation into the main body of the Word document, edit it there, and then replace it. But this feature should function within the footnote as well, should it not?
  • adamsmith
    Which Word version? And are you inserting the footnote in Word or with Zotero?
  • hgilbert
    Word 2010, and it is a Word footnote. (Can you insert footnotes with Zotero?)
  • adamsmith
    Zotero will automatically create footnotes for note-based style like Chicago Manual (full note), yes. In most cases, that's actually the recommended way to insert those.
  • hgilbert
    edited February 17, 2015
    I am using APA citation style.

    The text includes footnotes with explanatory text, within which there are separate citations. I cannot edit any citations within the footnotes except by moving these into the main body text.
  • Mike Forward
    Adam - your comment above "are you inserting the footnote in Word or with Zotero?" has made me think.

    I know this is a really dumb question, but if you want to insert just a footnote i.e. a comment without any citation component to it, what is the best way to do that? Do you insert a zotero citation in some special way, or just a standard Word footnote? Is it ok to combine zotero citations with Word footnotes in a document, or do things get confused?

    I'm sorry this is such a dumb question, but I can't see any answers to it in the documentation.
  • aurimas
    It's not a dumb question (no such thing, right?). You can mix regular Word footnotes and Zotero footnotes. Nothing will get confused.
  • hgilbert
    I realize your question may have been more generally directed, but in the case of APA citation style, there is no such thing as a "Zotero footnote", as Zotero citations are inserted inline.
  • adamsmith
    Right, this doesn't apply to APA.
    @Mike - perfectly valid question, but if you have any follow-ups, please use a new thread, so we can keep this one about the issue reported by hgilbert.
  • mattw
    I've come across the same issue. Just in case there's still any confusion, this is happening when using a footnote in Word to add some explanatory text that happens to include a citation. I'm not using a note-based reference style.
  • hgilbert
    This bug seems to have been squashed: hooray and thanks to the anonymous hero!
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