Lost field codes in document

  • Alicia Canning
    I am having the same problem - I tried to re-download and install Zotero again but didn't change.
  • adamsmith
    Could you clarify what "the same problem" means? Does that include the fact that it only affects the first citation? This thread is 3 years old and I don't think the error has appeared since.
  • Alicia Canning
    It affects all citations. So what I tried was deleting a citation and then inserting it again. This seamed to work but does not correct the whole doc. Its almost like my Zotero isn't picking up my citations and references because even when I insert bibliography only the "new" citations that I recently inserted (or deleted and re-inserted) appear.
    Hope this is clear, thanks for your help!
  • adamsmith
    Yeah, different issue then (@Dan%20Stillman -- could you split this off, please?).

    This does indeed seem like the field codes connecting Zotero to your document have gotten removed entirely. There are generally 3 ways this happens:
    1) Pressing and OKing "Remove Field Codes" in the Word add-on
    2) Saving the file in an unsupported format such as .odt or .rtf
    3) Opening and saving the file in software other than Word, such as Pages, LibreOffice, or Word 2016

    Could any of these be the case?
  • Alicia Canning
    Ok, what I've been doing is uploading it to googledoc. and then re-downloading it into microsoft word. I have Microsoft Word for Mac 2011 Version 14.6.9.
    I haven't updated my citations in my doc in a few weeks so I'm not sure when this Zotero error exactly occurred if it was when I updated my word or started to upload the document to googledoc.

    The only way I could see as per mentioned above is maybe #1. I will try and see if I can locate the "Remove Field Codes".
  • Alicia Canning
    If the "Removed Field Codes" has something to do with table of contents - this is likely it because I create an entirely new table of contents (separate from my original one).
  • adamsmith
    no -- Remove field codes is part of the Zotero toolbar. I think this i unlikely. I'd guess this happens because of googledocs
  • Alicia Canning
    Oh IC. Shoot. Well thanks for looking into it, really appreciate it!
  • lisa.ewans
    Hi, I'm having a similar problem with my Zotero reference fields being removed (I assume this is the case as they are no longer linked to Zotero when I try to look at them). I am not sure how this has happened. Yesterday I downloaded a new referencing format - American Journal of Human Genetics, and updated the reference format using this, which seemed to work OK, but then I noticed that the number of citations didn't match the number of references at the end of the document.
    How can I reinstate the fields? This is critical because otherwise I don't know which references I am referring to in my document if they are not reflected in the bibliography correctly. This is pretty urgent as I need to re-circulate the document this week. Thank you for a quick response.
  • bwiernik
    @lisa.ewans Your issue is probably different than the Alicia Canning's, so please start a new thread to troubleshoot it.

    I will let others troubleshoot why your fields got disconnected, but in the mean time, you can easily figure out if a citation is connected to Zotero or not by setting Word's field highlighting (in gray) to show Always (http://wordribbon.tips.net/T006107_Controlling_Field_Shading.html). This way, you will be able to quickly tell at a glance if a citation is connected or not.

This is an old discussion that has not been active in a long time. Before commenting here, you should strongly consider starting a new discussion instead. If you think the content of this discussion is still relevant, you can link to it from your new discussion.

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