Edit bibliography headers

JennK
I am wondering if there is a way to add headers to the "edit bibliography" window? Currently, I see only a column for the title and author (creator) of the article. But I really need to see the year of the article before I can choose which one I want to add to my bibliography. Is there any way to change the headers in the "edit bibliography" window?

In case it's relevant, I am using Word 2016 and Windows 10 and Zotero desktop 5.0.73.

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    No, there currently isn't. Easiest workaround I can tink of is to select the article and then check out the citation in the editor at the bottom.
    (I assume you're aware that the Edit Bibliography function is only intended for adding/removing (un)cited items to a bibliography that's otherwise automatically generated; for all other scenarios there are easier solutions)
  • JennK
    Thanks, @adamsmith. Yes, that is correct, I am using the edit bibiography function only to add items that I cited in the paper, but for which I did not use the in-text citation. For exmple, "Cohen (1988) suggests...." versus "Some suggest that.... (Cohen, 1988)."

    So I'm only adding references into the bibliography that are not added in automatically, such as the example above.

    I had a bit of an unusual circumstance (IT installed Windows 10 on my laptop - of course, to do that, they wipe everything out) that required me to have to manually re-enter all of the citations in a paper because what was in the paper was linked to Zotero folders that no longer existed. I have a backup of the previous Zotero folders, but I figured it would make more sense to update the citations to the new folder locations as I expect to have to do multiple revisions to the paper. And that is why I was in the position of needing to add some items to the new bibliography (such as in the example above) but not having the title of the article easily at hand.

    It would be useful, however, if it was possible to change the columns/headers in the edit bibliography page - or even just to add the year column. But I think your suggestion is probably the easiest for now (I also checked the child file name as I include the year in the PDF name most of the time).

    Thanks for your help!
    Jennifer
  • adamsmith
    You should add Cohen (1988) suggests via the word add on:
    Type "Cohen" --> Insert citation --> Suppress Author --> Zotero will just print (1988)

    Also, note on back-ups: https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#backing_up_your_zotero_library restoring from back-up shouldn't break your Zotero-document links.

    Anyway, I agree that having a year column there would make sense, I just don't know how quickly (if at all) that's going to happen, hence the workaround.
  • JennK
    @adamsmith, thank you for that tip! I didn't know that.

    Interestingly, I have another manuscript that had Zotero citations in it, and the links were all perfectly fine. In the manuscript I had to fix, the links had all converted to static text. But I did open the document before I had downloaded the Zotero Word plugin, so that may have been the issue. Probably if I had just closed the document and reopened, it would have been fine. In any case, all seems to be working now.

    I restored my Zotero library by downloading the desktop and letting it sync with the Zotero server. That seemed to work just fine. But of course, I will continue maintaining a separate backup on an external drive.

    Thank you for the quick response and the suggestions. I have asked for help with several issues over time and I always get the help I need. I love Zotero and its functionality, and I recommend it to anyone who asks about reference management! I wrote a master's thesis, and am now working on a PhD, and I have used Zotero for all of it. I wouldn't use anything else! I really appreciate the support you and others provide in these discussion forums. Thank you.
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