Zotero add citation dialog box extremely slow

pamrooks
Hi. I'm using the latest version of Zotero on my PC, and when I click the "Add Citation" box, I'm having to wait a full 20 seconds or more for the box to load. Is there a way to speed this up? I've tried double-clicking and am not sure how to manually open the dialog, as suggested by others on this page. Very grateful for any assistance.

Do you think in future versions, Zotero might consider adding the option to use reference numbers for each of the items in the library? In EndNote, you can put a code in the line, with the reference number of the item, the page number, and a number of other coded switches, and never have to interact with the interface at all to add the citation. Then, when hitting 'Refresh,' it brings in all those citations and formats them all in one stroke. It is such a huge time saver. It might also be nice if there was a feature in the library itself to just grab an item and add it to the document that way (or maybe I'm missing that?)

Thank you.

  • dstillman
    edited December 30, 2021
    Add/Edit Citation, you mean?

    What word processor?

    Assuming this happens only in a specific document, how many pages and citations are in the document?

    Can you provide a Debug ID for this happening?
  • pamrooks
    Thanks so much for the quick response. Here's the de-bugging report: D1527503309

    The document is large--right now it's 519 pages and has 586 citations so far. I generally have the "update" feature turned off, so am only updating the citations manually by using the "Refresh" button, still, to add each citation takes about a full 20 seconds. If there are any shortcuts, or ways to type the citations into the document to refresh later, or to pull them in from the Zotero library, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you again. (PS - Thank you, also, for Zotero -- it's a great app!)
  • djross3
    You said "PC" above, so I'm assuming this is Windows, not Mac, but slow response times for very long documents is a known issue on Mac (e.g. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/75544/word-2016-mac-plugin-very-slow), and the same advice might help you here: if you work in a separate, temporary document, then copy/paste back to your main document in sections, you should be able to entirely avoid this issue. You can even do it with the main document open at the same time (just be careful not to switch windows in Word while Zotero is adding a citation, or you'll end up with errors and slow response times too).
  • pamrooks
    Thanks - yes, it's a PC. I'm using Word. That's a great idea to try to copy and paste in from a smaller, temporary document. I'll give it a try! Thanks!
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