Selective Journals not Abbreviating

jgar79 · March 16, 2020

The problem I’ve run into is the random and (thankfully!) only occasional instance in which Zotero does not abbreviate journals in the footnotes. I'm not sure if it's the standalone or Word plugin causing this (or something else). I've re-entered the journals that have shown up in footnotes by their full name instead of the abbreviation, but nothing changes.

I'm using Windows 10, Zotero 5.0.85-beta.6+c3e390eb5, and Word 365.

Here is a link to a Google doc with some screenshots to illustrate.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Pu-T8iFvzsrb6xLEP2jHJy1oAUjymwEUdk2U9fSyKA/edit?usp=sharing

adamsmith · March 17, 2020

the google doc isn't publicly viewable

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

Try this link.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10Pu-T8iFvzsrb6xLEP2jHJy1oAUjymwEUdk2U9fSyKA

adamsmith · March 17, 2020

The problem isn't the link, it's your sharing settings. I'm guessing you've just shared with your organization (I did try the new link; still not working)

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

Let’s try again.
https://mega.nz/#!SVcFQKpb

bwiernik · March 17, 2020

What’s the decryption key?

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

https://mega.nz/#!3EdkCaZL!b7pvi3tv2H6GQuFFoTAY2yrriCkKfkBajLMHzcS1Lvw

bwiernik · March 17, 2020

In Word, open the Document Preferences window from the Zotero tab and uncheck the “Use MEDLINE journal abbreviations” box. That will use the abbreviations you have entered in Zotero instead of the automatic MEDLINE rules.

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

Thanks, @bwiernik , but that option has been unchecked and I still have the issue. It seems so random, which is why it's so confusing. I've considered using a custom .json file, but I'd rather not do that right now.

adamsmith · March 17, 2020

Can you try in a new document with the same citation?
It's possible Zotero has old citation information stored in the document

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

@adamsmith Yes, that worked with the example in the screenshot. Is the only solution then to transfer the contents of this doc to a new one? It's nearly 60 pages and Word is not the best at preserving formatting. However, I can't leave a handful of footnotes inconsistently formatted.

adamsmith · March 17, 2020

No, the solution would be to delete all incorrect cites and re-insert them, making sure to select the item from under "My Library" and not from under "Cited".

Copying to a new document likely wouldn't actually work as it copies stored data as well.

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

@adamsmith Thanks! Question—I have multiple subcollections in my library, which means many entries are duplicated. If I choose "My Library" how will I know which entry to use when there are multiples?

bwiernik · March 17, 2020

A single item can exist in many collections (think of them more like music playlists or photo albums, not computer folders), so they are most likely not duplicates. If you do have actual duplicate items, you can merge them using the Duplicate Items view in Zotero.

adamsmith · March 17, 2020

(and you should definitely merge all duplicates -- they'll stay in all relevant collections).

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

@bwiernik Thanks! I'm going to go through an merge all the duplicates and see if that resolves the issue.

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

That fixed it—thanks!!

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

@adamsmith @bwiernik Do you guys know if there is a forum discussion about making wholesale changes to a particular field, e.g., finding all entries published by a certain publisher to ensure consistency? Thanks.

dstillman · March 17, 2020

https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/javascript_api#batch_editing

jgar79 · March 17, 2020

@dstillman Perfect! I don't suppose there's any way to find/replace specific characters within a field, e.g., replace "&" with "and"?

bwiernik · March 18, 2020

You can use regular expressions for that: https://regex101.com/

dstillman · March 18, 2020

No need to use regular expressions here if you're just replacing one per field, and they wouldn't work in the SQL query anyway. You would need to use let value = item.getField(fieldName); to retrieve the field for each matching item and then use let newValue = value.replace(" & ", " and "); to replace the string. It's pretty simple, but you'd need some comfort with JavaScript to do it.

jgar79 · March 18, 2020

Thanks @dstillman—I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.