Zotero citations in .doc files?

funnell
At https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected it says 'When using Word, you need to save your document as .docx' and 'When using LibreOffice, if ... storing citations as Bookmarks, you must save your document as .docx'. However, in the Zotero Document Preferences window in LibreOffice, it says that when using Bookmarks 'the document must be saved as .doc or .docx'.

Is the use of the .doc format allowed or not? Is the answer the same whether using LibreOffice or Word?

By the way, do I understand correctly that in Word the option of ReferenceMarks is not offered in the Document Preferences dialogue window?
  • adomasven
    I believe both .doc and .docx should work, but that might depend on versions of LibreOffice and Word so you should check. .docx is preferred. The primary citation storage type is Fields on Word and Reference Marks on LibreOffice. These are not cross-compatible which is why the Bookmarks option is offered, however note that Bookmarks are quite brittle to break with excessive edits of the document, mostly when typing at the end of a citation, so we only recommend them if you need to share the doc with someone who cannot use the same Word processor as yourself.
  • funnell
    Thank you for another quick reply!

    I asked about .doc because of the inconsistency of the wording and because I prefer to use .doc when sharing with Word users, since I have the impression that overall LO-Word compatibility is better with .doc than .docx. (That impression may be outdated.)

    Do I understand correctly that in Word the user is offered a choice between Fields and Bookmarks?

    When the LO dialogue window says 'accidentally modified', is it referring to the unfortunate fact that typing at the end of a citation results in the new text being added to the citation field?
  • adomasven
    I prefer to use .doc when sharing with Word users, since I have the impression that overall LO-Word compatibility is better with .doc than .docx. (That impression may be outdated.)
    I don't think there is much reason to believe this when using recent versions of LibreOffice.
    Do I understand correctly that in Word the user is offered a choice between Fields and Bookmarks?
    Yes
    When the LO dialogue window says 'accidentally modified', is it referring to the unfortunate fact that typing at the end of a citation results in the new text being added to the citation field?
    Yes. Until recently there was no way to even display bookmark marks in LibreOffice although a recent 7.x.x version has added a display symbol for that when you enable Formatting Mark display so when you run into problems at least it's slightly easier to troubleshoot.
  • funnell
    Thank you again for all the information.
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