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.
  • edited January 14, 2017
    You can't copy citations from translator-based formats via Quick Copy. That only applies to bibliographic formats. (There's no concept of a citation in an export translator.)
  • OK. In my ignorance, I don't know the difference between a translator-based format and a bibliographic format. Does this refer to the categories "Bibliographic styles" and "Export formats" listed under the drop down list at Preferences > Export > QuickCopy > Default Output Format ? In other words, am I to understand that if any of the options listed under "Export formats" are chosen, then "Copy Citation" will never work?

    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.
  • In other words, am I to understand that if any of the options listed under "Export formats" are chosen, then "Copy Citation" will never work?
    Yes, that's right. BibTeX would obviously benefit from being able to copy a citation, but I think it's probably the exception among export translators where a "citation" format would actually make sense.

    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.
  • Thank you for the quick response and for opening those tickets to address the issues.

    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...")
  • No -- but the way better bibtex is envisioned it just creates a .bib file in the background, so you wouldn't really ever need what you think of as "copy bibliography".
  • Ideally yes, but if I'm collaborating with other folks who just use LaTeX (like right now), it's helpful to be able to drop individual references into a standalone .bib file.
  • 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.
    Dan – for what it's worth (I know the string has been modified) – because of the ambiguities described by jessriedel, I had more or less rewritten rather than translated these strings for the French localization. That was terribly wordy though :

    "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 had more or less rewritten rather than translated these strings for the French localization
    This isn't really appropriate — we can discuss changes to the original text, but the translated text should reflect the original wording.
  • edited July 20, 2017
    Got it. Fortunately, the current translation is more faithful.
    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.
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