Thanks for the prompt response! I see the style when working in word, but can't figure out how to edit it so that the in-text citations appear in chronological order. When I go to Edit>Preferences in Zotero, I can't edit the style. There has to be a way to edit the style. I've never seen any reference style use reverse chronological order for in-text citations, so I assume that its a glitch.

What is the best way to add, preview, and edit styles?

I see the Elsevier-Harvard style in the list, but am not able to preview it to see the details of the style. I will change the style preference in the Word doc to see if it is correct. The journal does not seem to have a preference for reference format, but does provide an example.

Thanks!
Jenn

Ah, ok. Getting closer to the actual problem.

As a dependent style you cannot edit it. You need to edit the so-called "parent" style, which I mentioned above, is the elsevier-harvard.csl style.

See here for instructions: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

You need to change a few more things (title, ID, self-link) otherwise it will never show up in the list. ;)

I'd suggest:
1. go here: https://editor.citationstyles.org/searchByName/
2. search for the elsevier harvard style
3. click on edit
4. edit what you need
5. download the style (visual editor), copy paste the style code in a copy of the original .csl file (if using the code editor)

Ok, sorry to be so dense about this, but I do not see where to edit the order of in-text citations in the Visual CSL Editor (step 4 in the aforementioned list).

yes, you're on the right track.
You need to move "Sort by issued" into the first position.

Finally got it. Sort by issue under Inline citations and under bibliography were both "descending" instead of "ascending". I'm glad for the experience of fixing this issue, but it cost me approx. $300 today. Maybe I should reconsider Endnote. :-/

Thanks so much for your help!

Yes, I see that in the guide to authors, which coincidentally states that citations should be ordered chronologically (which inherently means to follow the order in which they occurred) or alphabetically and then chronologically. However, if you look under the examples for the References section, references by the same authors are indeed listed chronologically (i.e., ascending):

Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.
Reference to a journal publication with an article number:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2018. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.

I'd go with convention, which is undoubtedly ascending order (i.e,, chronological) and then maybe have a second option for descending order. In any case, thanks so much for your assistance. Much appreciated!

OK, yes. That was not a great example. Here is a paper from Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology that is pending publication: https://tinyurl.com/yy88xhrb titled, "Biophysics and the nonlinear dynamics instigated by a special
hormone" (in case the tiny url does not work).

If you scroll to the References section of the aforementioned paper, there are two papers by Peter et al. that are listed in ascending order (i.e., chronological order). The authors appear to be the same for both publications. Is there another obscure priority for sorting those two references other than chronologically??

Thanks for the github link. The wording in the author instructions for Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology/Elsevier is confusing because they explicitly use the word "chronological" in the guidelines: "Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references can be listed either first alphabetically, then chronologically, or vice versa.......List: References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary."

If they wanted reverse-chronological order, those are the words they should use. I agree on all accounts that Elsevier has been consistently inconsistent and ambiguous when it comes to journal formatting guidelines. I run into this on a regular basis as a science editor and consultant.

Thanks for trying to get to the bottom of this! Interested to hear their response.