Zotero Toolbar not visible (but installed) in Open Office 4.1.6

student_1923 · February 23, 2019

Hi everyone

I've just installed the newest version of OpenOffice 4 and Zotero (5.0.60).
While working in OpenOffice I've closed the toolbar and somehow I just can't seem to figure out how I can "re-open" the toolbar again.
Looking through the forum I've only seen problems with the toolbar not showing despite installation, but no solution on how to "re-open" the Zotero tooblar when it has been closed for once. I've tried reinstalling Zotero and the Firefox plug-in nonetheless but still can't the Zotero toolbar to show up.
Could anyone please tell me how I can get OpenOffice to show the Zotero toolbar?

bwiernik · February 23, 2019

Zotero does not support Open Office. Install LibreOffice instead, which is much more actively developed.

student_1923 · February 23, 2019

Thank you very much for your answer, but I've been working with OpenOffice and Zotero since I can remember and still do work with that combination on my laptop.
The only thing I want to do is to display the zotero toolbar again (which was there before and also worked out until I closed that toolbar).
So the question is still the same for me: How can I "re-open" or display the toolbar (which has been there before)?

bwiernik · February 23, 2019

Like I said, Zotero does not support Open Office and hasn’t in years. Any partial functionality you might see on your laptop won’t be reliable, as Zotero relies on changes to the LibreOffice code made since Open Office was last updated (years ago). Open Office is a dead software project—all of the developers who supported Open Office have moved on to LibreOffice.

adomasven · February 23, 2019

We really do not recommend using the extension with OpenOffice anymore since you might get wrong citation formatting or citation corruption. That said, you can probably enable the toolbar under View -> Toolbars -> Zotero.

student_1923 · February 24, 2019

Thanks again to both of you for your answers.
I wasn't aware that using OpenOffice with Zotero became such an issue (especially since I've been using it at least monthly without any problems). It's a pity that I'm "forced" to switch in the middle of my master's thesis but I hope that LibreOffice is not to different from OpenOffice.

Anyways, like written by adomasven I found the Zotero toolbar under "View -> Toolbars -> Zotero" but strangely the toolbar appeared only after I also randomly chose a second toolbar option, which caused the appearance of both chosen toolbars (just in case anyone runs into the same problem).

Thank you for your support and have a nice day!

bwiernik · February 24, 2019

LibreOffice is essentially the updated version of Open Office.

DWL-SDCA · February 24, 2019

Everything that was once wonderful about OpenOffice is now even better with LibreOffice. The original developers moved to LO early-on. Although the very reputable group Apache now owns the OO project (and has for a few years) it remains dormant. LibreOffice is under active development to keep abreast of security and processor technology changes.