vague message if entry (?) has changed

jdgunn3
Does anyone understand the message:
You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?
Clicking "Yes" will prevent Zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citation, switch styles, or modify the item to which it refers. Clicking "No" will erase your changes.

My experience has been that I can make sense out of it. If I click yes or no the program blows up and I have to close the word document and Zotero and start over again.

This is in response to problem report 1029056782
  • adamsmith
    It means that you have manually modified the currently highlighted citation in Word, which is something you'd want to avoid in most cases.
    If you click Yes, those changes will stick, but Zotero won't update the citation anymore (including to change citation styles, e.g.), if you click No, your manual changes will be reverted.
  • dstillman
    @jdgunn3: And see Customizing Cites for the various ways to make changes to citations properly so that you don't need to edit the citation text directly.
  • kiantajbakhsh
    edited April 23, 2021
    I find this is a very confusing message. Please re-write it. I've been using Zotero for a number of years, happily. But this is the one thing that is frustrating. As for the adamsmith explanation, I get the message even when I haven't changed anything manually in the word doc. I just changed in the original reference, then refreshed, but got that message.
  • adamsmith
    That's two separate issues.
    1. If this is appearing when it shouldn't, that's a bug, but we'd want to know more about the circumstances of that. The message will now include both the original and the changed citation. How do those differ in your case?
    2. How would you rephrase that message? My sense is you're not actually confused by the message but by the fact that it appears when you think it shouldn't.
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