Zotero "fields" broken in Word for in-text citation

cyberpvnk
Hi,

I found that when I use Chicago (Author-date) style, if the Author name has some special characters like (à, è, ù). The citation will appear incorrectly. For example, it will become:

[(Schön 1988)]

Notice there are extra [ ] brackets in grey color appear in Word. For normal "fields" generated by Zotero in Word, the field should be highlighted to grey background when it is clicked over it. But with this error-citation, it becomes acting like plain texts, i.e. no grey background when clicked. (But the field codes are actually there if I choose to "View field codes instead of values) in Word.

Also, with this error, the font of the in-text citation automatically become New Times Roman, regardless of whatever font is used in the Word document.

I noticed that if I include page-range in the citation, when the citation needs to produce a dash, same error occurs as well.

If I change to Chicago (full note) style, similar problem occurs, but appears in the footnote. Like this:

1.[ Donald A. Schön, “Designing: Rules, Types and Words,” Design Studies 9, no. 3 (July 1988): 181–90, https://doi.org/10.1016/0142-694X(88)90047-6.]

Notice the extra [ ] symbols.

I have spent hours in finding a solution - still in vain.

Hope you could help me on this. Thank you!!

Im using Zotero 5.0.43 (Mac), MS Word for Mac (16.11.1), macOS Sierra 10.12.6

Thanks again!!

  • dstillman Zotero Team
    I'm not seeing that with the same record in Zotero 5.0.44/Word 16.11.1/10.13.3.

    Does this happen in a new document?
  • cyberpvnk
    It happens to all documents, both old and new.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    And this is using Word fields, not bookmarks?

    Can you confirm that it still happens in 5.0.44? (There was actually another report of this today, and it apparently went away for them in 5.0.44.) And though it shouldn't be necessary, you can also try reinstalling the Word plugin from the Cite pane of the Zotero preferences with Word closed.

    It's also possible there's some difference between Sierra and High Sierra here. If upgrading is an option, I'd try that.
  • cyberpvnk
    Yup. It is using fields, not bookmarks (I know bookmarks are not stable).

    I just installed 5.0.44. The problem persists.

    Also tried to reinstall the Word plugin again. Still can't solve the problem.

    Another note:
    If I try to generate bibliography, whole bibliography will start with an extra [ and end with and extra ] - similar to the issue in the other report.
  • bwiernik
    Just to note—I encountered this behavior when Word for Mac 16.9 was first released, but the subsequent updates to Zotero fixed it at time for me.
  • adomasven Zotero Team
    @minox%2Eb Could you submit a Report ID?
  • cyberpvnk
    I submitted a report. Report ID: 1294943280

    I also updated my OS to High Sierra 10.13.4. Also tried uninstall / reinstall Zotero and sync with another account. Same problem persists.

    Thanks so much for the help!!
  • adomasven Zotero Team
    Go into Zotero Preferences -> Cite -> Word Processors and reinstall the Word plugin.
  • cyberpvnk
    Actually after I upgraded to High Sierra, I reinstalled Word, Zotero, also reinstalled the word plugin. Problem still persists.

    Is there any other solution?
  • adomasven Zotero Team
    Word reinstall would not trigger the plugin reinstall. Have you tried to manually reinstall the plugin and restart Word? This is the only report we have of a problem like this, but the symptoms are similar to those that people had after the release of Word 16.9+. We have fixed the problem on our side with the updated plugin.

    Otherwise, you could provide a Debug ID from Zotero, which might show what's going on

    1. In the Help menu, go to Debug Output Logging and select Enable.
    2. In a new Word doc, add a citation.
    3. Before doing anything else, return to Help → Debug Output Logging and click Submit Output, which will disable logging and submit the output to zotero.org. A window should pop up containing a Debug ID. Click “Copy to Clipboard” and paste the Debug ID into this forum thread.
  • cyberpvnk
    edited April 12, 2018
    Yes. I reinstalled the WORD plugin manually.

    I also updated my Word to the latest version (16.12) last night. But it still didn't solve the problem.

    I just submitted a debug report, with #D1042013907.

    Thank you very much!!
  • adomasven Zotero Team
    Could you send this document with the citation that looks incorrect to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread?
  • cyberpvnk
    email sent. thank you!
  • adomasven Zotero Team
    It looks like the Zotero plugin is failing to reinstall for you properly. Could you try reinstalling the plugin manually? You might need to check your startup directory first.
  • cyberpvnk
    thanks so much for the help! reinstalling the plugin manually solved the problem.

    i found that in in startup directory there was an old zotero.dot (from my previous versions of Word and Zotero) which leads to zotero.dotm (from the current version) cannot be installed properly.

    So i deleted zotero.dot and copied zotero.dotm to the right place. everything is solved now.

    thanks so much again!!!

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