Invalid style error in Word (Mac)

edited August 8, 2018
The style you have selected does not appear to be valid. If you have created this style yourself, please ensure that it passes validation as described at https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/wiki/Validation. Alternatively, try selecting another style.
I am getting the error above in an old document I have opened for the first time in a little while (after changing some styles). That error comes up when I click on ANY/ALL buttons in the whole Zotero toolbar, and I can't get past it in order to either see which style is being used in the document (I forget) or to change it to a valid style.

I'm unaware that any of my styles are corrupted. The only one I intended to edit validates just fine, but that also isn't the one that was used in the old document (because it is new).

Suggestions on how to troubleshoot this and figure out what's going on in order to fix it?

It's a long and important document and I'd rather not rewrite the whole thing, especially if this error might recur in this or another document.

Everything seems to work fine in a new document, so maybe because I have updated the styles the old document no longer knows what to do? Is this a known problem?
  • @adomasven -- that error should a) display the style name and b) allow for changing the style. As is, it makes life unnecessarily difficult for users.

    @djross3 -- Easiest for you would likely be to just copy and paste the content of the document into a fresh document and select a citation style there. There are different solutions if this isn't feasible, but they're all more involved.
  • edited August 8, 2018
    Yes, it would be very helpful if it showed the style and allowed me to change it :)

    It seems to work to copy it to a new document, but that will require going back through to make a number of changes to citations (e.g., adding or removing parentheses as needed). This is a draft of my dissertation,* about 200 pages. I'd really like to avoid redoing it if possible.
    (*Actually it's several different files, one per chapter, but I've now just checked and they all seem to be affected.)

    I believe the style in use in these documents is the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistic Journals, which has been updated as discussed in this thread:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8682/request-unified-style-sheet-for-linguistic-journals
    Is there a problem with the new version? (It appears to be live on the server, now, dated August 2nd.)

    I have also made some personal changes to a second version of that style, to customize some things, but this is NOT the style in use in the older documents, nor have I made any customizations to the standard Unified Style Sheet for Linguistic Journals, and I also just tried reinstalling it to see if that would help.

    So my best guess is that in updating the style to the new version somehow it got out of sync with what Word (or Zotero's embedded metadata) was expecting and is now refusing to let me edit the document. Is this a known problem for updated/corrected styles in Zotero? Should I try to revert to the old version?

    Note: I have an even older backup of this document — using a different style (APA I think, before I updated it a while ago), and that one works fine. So this isn't a problem with using Zotero in general for older documents, but specifically for this style having been updated.
  • I see. Thank you.

    I'll reply there. Can this discussion be closed?
This discussion has been closed.