updating citations

pedrissimo
Hello, I am a new Zotero user and I have created a bibliography and saved the file and closed it. When I go back, open the file and insert a new citaion, the citaion starts again at the beginning as if the existing bibliography does not exist?

TIA and thanks for the tool
  • Tjowens
    How did you create your bibliography? See http://www.zotero.org/support/creating_bibliographies
  • pedrissimo
    I created my bibliography by going through each citation and clicking add citation. This brought me to the zotero toolbar and i selected the entry i wanted for the citation. At the end I clicked the Insert Bibliography icon. However, when I try to go back and add a citaion it starts from the beginning?
  • adamsmith
    OK. This shouldn't happen.
    What do you mean with starts from the beginning? When you open the document and insert a citation, does it ask you in which style? When you move the cursor in an old citation and select "edit citation" - do you get an error? ("The Cursor is not currently in a citation"). If the answer to these questions is "no", everything is working fine. just click the "Refresh" Button in the toolbar and the bibliography will update.

    If the answer to the questions is "yes" you have somehow deleted the information that links Zotero to the citation. The most common way that happens is if you use Open Office, use reference marks, and save the document as .doc.
    It would also happen if you save any document as .rtf.
  • pedrissimo
    I am using open office and I do save my document as a ".doc". Let me be more explicit in defining my problem.

    If I have a document I add citations one line at a time and then create a bibliography. I then close/re-open the document, and when I try to add a NEW citation, it starts at (1) as if it does not see the old bibliography?
  • adamsmith
    edited September 8, 2009
    yes, that's what I thought. Look at the second part of my answer above.
    "you have somehow deleted the information that links Zotero to the citation".
    So Zotero does indeed think you are starting from the beginning.

    To avoid that you will need to either
    a) save you document as an .odt or
    b) in the first screen you get select to use "Bookmarks" and not "Reference Marks"

    For the existing document there is not much you can do except for replacing the old citations by hand.
  • pedrissimo
    Option B worked. Thanks. Option A not so much.

    Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    edited September 8, 2009
    Option A is the standard (though it should read .odt, I've corrected that). Generally it's the preferable option, because reference marks are more stable.

    Or do you mean it doesn't work because you need the documents as .doc?
    (in which case option B is what you want anyway.)
  • pedrissimo
    Yes, now option A is working for me when I start from scratch. I will eventually need to save the doc as a ".doc" but I think this can be done at the very end? If this is the case, is option A still the way to go?
  • adamsmith
    Yes, exactly, that's how I work - I work with reference marks and then the last thing I do is to save a copy of the file as .doc for my MS loving friends.

    The only reason to use bookmarks IMHO is if two people are working on the same document - one in word, the other in Ooo.
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