Copy references between documents

detomassino
Dear All,

I have a problem copying text including references between the documents. I have never needed that until now so don't know if this is a new problem or not - have been using Zotero happily for 5 years now

I am running libreoffice fresh 6.1.2-1 with Zotero 5.0.56 libreoffice connector add in on linux

To reproduce the problem
1) make a new document, save it as xy.docx
2) insert reference, chose citation style and choose to use bookmarks to store references
3) copy/paste text including reference field code from an old document into the new one. BTW the old document has the same references settings/style as the new one
4) insert bibiolography in the new document - the reference copied from the old document is not recognised and doesn't have field code/can't be edited

The same problem occurs if the step 2 is replaced by just setting the zotero bibiolography preferences in the new document.

What is the problem here? I though this was a reliably working feature by now.

Best regards,
T
  • bwiernik
    You need to save the files as ODT if you are working with LibreOffice
  • detomassino
    Hello,
    When selecting the bibliography settings it offers me to store them as referencemarks of bookmarks. When selecting bookmarks the file has to be saved as doc/docx the popup says.
    I need to share the document with people using MS-Word, hence the bookmarks selection.
    All is working well when sharing some document with Word users.

    BTW- I just tried to save the same document as odt - problem with copying references still persists
  • bwiernik
    In that case, yes, Bookmarks with DOCX is correct. When you save a file, close, and re-open it (same file, no copy-paste yet), are the citations still active and editable?
  • detomassino
    edited October 14, 2018
    yest, they are active and editable in the old document

  • bwiernik
    edited October 14, 2018
    Hmm, okay. I checked in Word, and I am also seeing that copying citations (either within or between documents) doesn't bring the bookmarks that hold the Zotero data. Doing some Googling, it looks like this is a limitation of bookmarks in general. Are you sure that you were ever able to copy bookmarks (not ReferenceMarks or Fields) between documents?

    A workaround would be to open the document, switch to ReferenceMarks while you work on it, then switch back to Bookmarks before you save/send back to your colleagues.
  • detomassino
    edited October 14, 2018
    Hello,
    Thank you for looking into this.
    I am not sure how it used to be as I never needed to copy references from one document to another.

    To clarify what I am doing is I have a text with citation as a superscript above the word, e.g.:

    economy5 (only 5 is superscript).

    I expect to copy economy5 and paste it into a new document and it should bring the reference with it. It brings the number 5 but it is just a character, not editable and can't create bibliography from it.



    I have tried your work around and it works. Thank you.


    Two questions:

    So can we conclude that you can't copy references between files if they are stored as bookmarks? I.e. you can't copy references if you want to save documents in word format?

    Also, why can't we use Refmarks and save document in word format?

    Best regards,
    T
  • bwiernik
    1) It seems so. Bookmarks are much more limited as a feature provided by Word/LibreOffice, so this doesn’t really surprise me all that much.

    2) Word doesn’t have ReferenceMarks (that’s an exclusive feature of LO), and I believe that LibreOffice’s Fields (what Word uses) are less accessible in their API (but @adomasven would know more about that).
  • detomassino
    Thank you for your help. Much appreciated

    BW,
    T
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