WPS Office integration

rutyggi
Hello,

following this thread (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/79823/wps-support) (now closed), I have contacted the WPS Office team to ask for Zotero support / an exposed API.

They told me that the WPS Office API is the same as the Microsoft Office API, and so the plugin for Microsoft Office should be compatible with WPS Office out of the box.

However, I have Zotero for Linux (I am on Ubuntu 20.10) and only the LibreOffice plugin is available.

How can I install the Microsoft Office plugin from Zotero for Linux?
  • adomasven
    At this time Zotero will not provide a plugin for WPS Office. Either WPS Office or a third-party may create a Zotero plugin, although this will be very difficult without official documentation. Microsoft Word has at least 3 different ways to create plugins on Windows, one of which is supported with Word Online and Word for Mac, and there's also a separate way to create a plugin for Word for Mac. Unless WPS provides developer documentation, especially for Linux, creating such a plugin will be a significant effort since you'd be working in the dark.

    We recommend using LibreOffice. If you're on Linux and do not want to use LibreOffice for some reason the Softmaker TextMaker developers have also included a Zotero plugin with their software.
  • rutyggi
    edited January 18, 2021
    There problem is that it is really important for me to have full compatibility with Microsoft Office.

    Despite what is falsely claimed on their website, LibreOffice is almost not compatible with Microsoft Office (yes, I have all the Microsoft fonts installed and working and found by LibreOffice through fontconfig). The support for Microsoft Office in reality is experimental. If a .docx file contains a bit more than text and some image that follow the flow of the text, LibreOffice will destroy the layout of the document. The real deal-breaker is Presentation, where LibreOffice is sure to destroy the layout of the presentation if it contains math or images.

    I have tried SoftMaker FreeOffice and it is much better, but still not perfect. However, for some reason the version I downloaded was 2018, so I will ask them whether there is a more recent version.

    On the other hand, I had no interoperability problems with WPS Office so far. After installing all the fonts it just display things correctly.

    The WPS Support has told me that the API is the same as Microsoft Office. Whichever one of the three APIs they have implemented, it should work out of the box. They gave me a free trial of the Pro version in order to test the Zotero plugin.

    I have no experience with Microsoft Office plugins. Which language is the plugin, is it a .dll or something like a LUA script?

    Can I just have the file for the Microsoft Office plugin in Linux so I copy it in the WPS Office folder, and report to them whether it works without bothering you any further?

    I will also link them to this thread.

    I will ask them to provide proper documentation also.

    Thank you very much for your kind answer
  • adomasven
    This will simply not work at all. The Zotero Windows Word plugin uses the Windows COM messaging system, which does not exist on Linux, ditto for Zotero Mac Word which uses Apple Events via Scripting Bridge. There is nothing you can copy into any WPS Office folders that has any chance of working on Linux. Presumably WPS Office supports Visual Basic, but that is not what Zotero uses for its plugins.
  • lukacsgaspar
    I just want to concur and support raffaem's comments. LibreOffice is terrible at MS Office compatibility, and WPS is the only working solution on Linux. It would be really great if Zotero could be used with WPS. I'm checking for news regarding this like every couple of months. But I understand that it depends on the WPS team.
  • juw1179
    I just found that WPS does provide the documentation for plugin development:

    https://open.wps.cn/docs/client/wpsLoad

    The only problem is that the documentation is in Chinese.
  • bigben446
    I've mailed the wps support for zotero plugin.

    Their offical mail addriess is:
    wps@wps.cn
    wps_linux@wps.cn
  • Pedro Rosmaninho
    Is there any update in this. My work uses a stupidly outdated Microsoft Office version (2010) so I am using WPS Office as replacement, but really need Zotero to work. The plug-in appears on a custom tab but nothing works. :(
  • adomasven
    For what it's worth Office updates since 2010 have not changed any core Word functionality. Mostly interface changes and some esoteric stuff, but nothing dramatic for everyday writing. We have Zotero users that seem to get by fine with Office 2003 (although we don't support it and don't recommend that you use that).
  • Pedro Rosmaninho
    edited March 30, 2022
    Office 2010 looks horrendous though on Windows 10 devices.
    WPS has great compatibility with .docx and an awesome dark theme that is better for my eyes.

    I will have to sacrifice the dark theme though, and I'll just use LibO Writer. I really need zotero.
    I think there's information for plugin development for WPS and with minor changes the Zotero plug-in could be made to work. It already shows up in a custom tab on WPS and everything.
    This could be something to have an advantage over Mendeley.

    Anyway, WPS is better because their presentation and spreadsheet software are superior to LibreOffice so I'll use for those two roles and LibO Writer for document editing (Writer will get a dark theme in Windows anyway).
  • bwiernik
    As has been said above in this thread, you would need to request that WPS add Zotero integration from their end.
  • bigben446
    Is there any update?
  • bwiernik
    As has been said above in this thread, you would need to request that WPS add Zotero integration from their end. It is not helpful to continue posting here.
  • yoaman
    edited May 31, 2022
    It seems some community is working on it (https://github.com/l0o0/Zotero-WPS). Anyway I agree with bwiernik and others. Would be easier if Kingsoft officially supports it.
  • vinicius_pg
    Hello,

    I suggest you use the WPS Feedback tool available at https://help.wps.com/, indicating the need for integration with the Zotero reference manager for academic text development...
  • ebhrz
    Hi, I want to use zotero on linux with wps. Are you still interesting in this plugin? I can translate wps development documents, and I also can do the programming. If I can develop a DEMO, will zotero official help to improve?
  • jingpengw
    I would really interested to see this plugin developed as well!
  • yangjh
    https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/579975093
  • tankway
    I've just made an addon for WPS Writer, it's compatible with the documents created in Windows/MS Word.

    https://github.com/tankwyn/WPS-Zotero
  • xuxinliang
    @tankway Thanks
  • Siaght
    @tankway, you're amazing, thank you so much! As a PhD student who uses Linux this has been a major pain! Until now, everything works flawlessly!
  • wilsonnandolo
    Hello @tankway: You have made my work much easier. Thank you!!!
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