Changed article titles in Zotero, not updating in MS Word bibliography

michaelviridae
edited June 28, 2021
Hi,

I am running Zotero 5.0.97-beta.33+fdcd4e51c and I noticed when I updated titles (case and/or actual article title) of publications in My Library, then click "Refresh" for the bibliography in Microsoft Word, the titles do not update. Is there any way to force this change to take effect, besides manually removing and adding back all the citations?

Thanks!

EDIT: I should note that I do not have any 'short title' set for any article set. Deleting/re-adding the bibliography section didn't solve the issue either.
  • dstillman
    Check that you're actually editing the items associated with the citations. Click a citation in Word, click Add/Edit Citation, and click on the citation bubble in the red citation dialog. In the popup, look for an "Open in [library]" button at the bottom of the popup.
  • michaelviridae
    Hi @dstillman , it looks like I was editing the correct item. Additionally, my search results in my library for these items only return 1 entry. If I delete the individual citation in my text, and re-add it, then my bibliography is updated. However this would be tedious to do for all my citations.
  • dstillman
    So just to confirm, you're saying you can use "Open in [library]", make a change to an item in Zotero, go back to Word and click Refresh, and the change isn't reflected for the item in the bibliography? And same if you delete the bibliography completely and reinsert it? If you insert a second citation, do you still only have one, incorrect bibliography entry?

    If you insert the same item in a new document, do you get the new data?
  • michaelviridae
    New Word documents have the correct title data. I looked a bit closer at other citations in my original document, and it seems they aren't all linked to a reference in Zotero. As in, when I click a citation in Word, click Add/Edit Citation, not all have a citation highlighted.
    I wonder if this is a product of me migrating this document from Mendeley Desktop to Zotero. Seems like it didn't migrate the links to the individual documents in my library, rather just kept track of the citations and numbers in case I enter new ones above/below?
  • dstillman
    edited June 28, 2021
    Yes, citations inserted by Mendeley can be used by the Zotero plugin, but you can't edit their metadata — and the citations aren't related to the items you imported into Zotero at all. That's why I specifically asked about "Open in [library]" above, not just searching your Zotero library. Mendeley citations won't show that button, and you can't edit their metadata.
  • michaelviridae
    I see, thanks for clarifying. In that case I'll have to go through and re-link my citations then. Do you know by chance if updating one instance of the Mendeley citation will update all other instances of it?

    Ex: if I cite reference number 5 a couple times, and I update the first instance in my text to the Zotero version, would all other instances where I cite "5" be updated to link to Zotero's entry?
  • dstillman
    edited June 28, 2021
    No, sorry, it won't. You'll need to reinsert all of them (again, if you actually need to edit the citations — if you just want to continue using them in your bibliography, you can keep them as is).

    A future version of Zotero might be able to automatically link imported citations with Mendeley citations, but that's not currently possible.
  • michaelviridae
    And just to confirm, while Zotero doesn't link Mendeley citations with Zotero articles, it will still keep track of the numbering which was done by Mendeley, and update the numbers' order only if/when appropriate?
  • dstillman
    Yes. A Mendeley citation is basically just the same as a Zotero citation for which you've deleted the associated item in Zotero. They're both active citations and will continue to work, but they're unconnected to any items in your library and can't be edited.
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