Unable to use "Edit > Copy Citation" or Ctrl+Shift+A
I'm running stand-alone Zotero 4.0.29.15 on macOS 10.12.1.
I am unable to use "Edit > Copy Citation" or Ctrl+Shift+A to copy a citation to the clipboard. Whatever was already on the clipboard remains.
I am able to successfully use "Edit > Copy Bibliography", Ctrl+Shift+C, Drag&Drop, and Shift+Drag&Drop. They all do the same thing, and the style they use is correctly determined by the drop down list in Preferences > Export > QuickCopy.
I only recently tried to use both of these abilities ("Copy Bibliography" and "Copy Citation") after installing the Better BibTex add-on. However, I have disabled this add-on and restarted Zotero, and all of the above behavior persisted, so hopefully that is not the issue. I have also confirmed that the shortcut keys (A and C) have not be changed in the preferences.
I am not sure if it helps, but I restarted Zotero (with Better BibTex) and then attempted to use "Edit > Copy Citation" or Ctrl+Shift+A, and then filed a report with ID: 259539246. I have also read at least a dozen discussion threads, but could not find anyone who clearly had the same problem.
Incidentally, because I can't get it to work, I'm not confident I really understand the intended difference between "Copy Bibliography" and "Copy Citation". Ideally, I would use "Copy Bibliography" to create BibTex bibliography, like this
> @article{palomaki2013entangling, title =..., author = ...},
> @article{clark2017sideband, title =..., author = ...}
and "Copy Citation" to create a BibTex citation key for direct insertion into LaTeX, like this
> \cite{palomaki2013entangling,clark2017sideband}
I can get either behavior through the "Copy Bibliography" command by correctly setting the style under QuickCopy, but I cannot get both at the same time. And, as stated above, "Copy Citation" appears to never do anything.
I am unable to use "Edit > Copy Citation" or Ctrl+Shift+A to copy a citation to the clipboard. Whatever was already on the clipboard remains.
I am able to successfully use "Edit > Copy Bibliography", Ctrl+Shift+C, Drag&Drop, and Shift+Drag&Drop. They all do the same thing, and the style they use is correctly determined by the drop down list in Preferences > Export > QuickCopy.
I only recently tried to use both of these abilities ("Copy Bibliography" and "Copy Citation") after installing the Better BibTex add-on. However, I have disabled this add-on and restarted Zotero, and all of the above behavior persisted, so hopefully that is not the issue. I have also confirmed that the shortcut keys (A and C) have not be changed in the preferences.
I am not sure if it helps, but I restarted Zotero (with Better BibTex) and then attempted to use "Edit > Copy Citation" or Ctrl+Shift+A, and then filed a report with ID: 259539246. I have also read at least a dozen discussion threads, but could not find anyone who clearly had the same problem.
Incidentally, because I can't get it to work, I'm not confident I really understand the intended difference between "Copy Bibliography" and "Copy Citation". Ideally, I would use "Copy Bibliography" to create BibTex bibliography, like this
> @article{palomaki2013entangling, title =..., author = ...},
> @article{clark2017sideband, title =..., author = ...}
and "Copy Citation" to create a BibTex citation key for direct insertion into LaTeX, like this
> \cite{palomaki2013entangling,clark2017sideband}
I can get either behavior through the "Copy Bibliography" command by correctly setting the style under QuickCopy, but I cannot get both at the same time. And, as stated above, "Copy Citation" appears to never do anything.
If that's correct, let me just mention that that seems very difficult to figure out as a user. (In particular, the different terminology used everywhere is really confusing.) It would be really helpful to grey out "Copy Citation" from the Edit menu, or give the user some other indication of what's going on.
I've created an issue to disable Copy Citation when an export translator is selected. It probably also makes sense to say something other than Copy Bibliography for those, since that's not what it's doing.
We also have an open ticket to adjust some of the language in the Quick Copy prefs, and we can see if we can clarify the difference between the two format types a bit more.
I know that "Better BibTex" is an external add-on which isn't necessarily supported by the Zotero team, but do you of any way to accomplish what I described above?(Starting with "Ideally, I would use...")
"La copie rapide permet de copier vers le presse-papiers les documents sélectionnés, soit comme une *bibliographie* conforme à un Style bibliographique retenu ci-dessous, soit au Format d'exportation retenu ci-dessous. Il suffit d'appuyer sur %S ou de glisser-déposer les documents dans une zone de texte."
"La Copie rapide vous permet d'exporter rapidement des documents dans un format donné. Vous pouvez copier les documents sélectionnés dans le presse-papier en appuyant sur %S ou les glisser-déposer directement dans la zone de texte d'un autre logiciel."
I think there should be a short explanation of the difference between translator-based formats and bibliographic formats – or, more exactly, of the consequences of the distinction in this context.