Zotero sometimes deletes my citations

I am having a problem using zotero to add citations to a word document. My computer is a MacBook Pro and I update zotero and word regularly (so I am not behind on updates).

this happens when I add a new citation to a document - I will get a series of dialogue windows that note I have changed citation in the document (which is true, I do alter the citations adding free text descriptions, discursive information relevant to the ideas in the text, and sometimes altering capitalizations or replacing random characters which are sometimes generated in place of characters with diacritical marks). the directive says I must allow or disallow zotero to update the citation and it shows the changes it will adjust (I take to mean undo my changes which I want to keep) - yes will make it do nothing - or so I thought - no makes the changes suggested in the dialogue window. Yes, although it seems to say that zotero will do nothing, I just realized that sometimes it will remove the citation altogether and replace it with what I am trying to insert somewhere else in the document - leaving the {citation} placeholder in the note I was trying to add a citation to.

My question. How do I insure the integrity of the work I have done - and continue to do - going forward? I must make certain that Zotero does not corrupt my footnotes by adding bogus citations and removing legitimate ones without notifying me it is doing this. such a problem would be grave and require an amazing amount of work to correct. I am sure I am not the only one having this issue. Please advise.
  • While it shouldn't corrupt the citations, you're much more likely to face problems by editing citations manually while they're active in the document, and doing so is almost always the incorrect approach. Data problems — capitalization, incorrect characters — should always be fixed in Zotero, not in the document, and you should customize citations using the prefix/suffix options and/or the Suppress Author option in the citation dialog for discursive citations. If you're unsure how to fix something properly without modifying the citation, let us know.

    In any case, if you can reliably reproduce a problem with a specific modified citation, you can excerpt that and email it to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread, but we strongly recommend adjusting your workflow to avoid those modifications.
  • Thanks for the detailed response. So I should not touch the citation once it is in place and go back to zotero to make changes to the actual record I have established if there is a problem?

    Is there a way to shut down the updates it does - all I really want is a manager that will allow me to insert the note into the text, I don't want the program doing unexpected things to my document. The consequences of zotero editing my document could be really bad. Can I set it up so that it just puts the citations in and then leaves my document alone?
  • So I should not touch the citation once it is in place and go back to zotero to make changes to the actual record I have established if there is a problem?
    Yes.
    Can I set it up so that it just puts the citations in and then leaves my document alone?
    This is a bit of a flawed premise. Zotero — or any citation tool — needs to be able to update citations to ensure that they're accurate. If you fix something in Zotero, or if you're using a style that requires given name disambiguation or ibid. or other things that depend on the context of the citations, or if you change the citation style, the citations will need to be updated to remain correct, and by modifying them yourself you're creating a situation where it can't do that while preserving your edits. If you just want flat citations and bibliographies, you can use Quick Copy, but for many styles that can't produce entirely correct citation output. It's better to learn the correct ways to address things in Zotero and then let it manage the citations for you.

    For certain rare scenarios, you can leave some notes in the text for things to fix, use Unlink Citations in a copy of the document right before submitting it, and then apply the manual corrections to the flat text.

    Again, though, even though they're strongly discouraged, manual edits shouldn't actually corrupt your citations, so if you can reproduce a problem reliably in a document excerpt, we'd want to know about it.
  • You can use quick copy to just insert plain text citations: https://www.zotero.org/support/creating_bibliographies#quick_copy but that obviously removes a lot of the advantages of using a reference manager, including automatically generating a bibliography, updating citation formatting based on location the document, ability to change citation styles, etc.
  • @ConnellCNU: You sent screenshots, but we'd want to see an actual excerpt from the document that demonstrates the problem — and ideally an excerpt both before and after the problem occurs, with the exact steps you can take to get it to occur. Zotero obviously doesn't normally just replace citations with different citations, or else the forums would be full of panicked reports of that, so if you think that's happening, you'd need to try to reproduce it reliably.
  • edited December 13, 2019
    As a fellow Zotero user and occasional Zotero trainer I just want to abstract away from the supposed errors and want to note two simple principles about when and where to edit citations.

    @ConnellCNU, you describe your workflow as follows:
    (i) I do alter the citations adding free text descriptions, discursive information relevant to the ideas in the text, (ii) and sometimes altering capitalizations or replacing random characters which are sometimes generated in place of characters with diacritical marks
    These are two kinds of edits, and neither of them should be done directly in the text that turns grey when you place your cursor in it (the 'field' is the technical term). The first, adding notes or suppressing author names to fit your the flow of your text, should be done using the "Edit citation" command in the Zotero Word plugin. There is a prefix and a suffix field where you can add notes to your heart's content, a separate field for page number, and a checkbox to suppress the author name if needed. If you do it that way, Zotero will be able to keep your citation up to date and keep your edits. It sounds like that is exactly what you need.

    For the second, it is not entirely clear whether you refer to fixing bibliographic metadata or some other font problem. But assuming the first, this should always be done in Zotero itself as noted by Dan and others. The reason is simple: if capitalisation or special characters are done right at the source, the citation style that you choose in Word will do the work for you.

    If there is a citation in your Zotero library that has has characters with diacritical marks and that reliably generates "random characters" when cited in Word, that would be useful to know and to report specifically. But that is a separate kind of problem.

    In sum, it sounds to me like most of the issues you run into can be solve simply by the two above rules, i.e. by making edits not indiscriminately in the grey text field, but instead using the Edit citation button (for notes etc.) or in Zotero (for correcting faulty metadata once and for all). That way, Zotero won't complain about edits having been made and will keep your notes and your citations up to date.

    Hope this helps!
Sign In or Register to comment.