Special characters in Google Docs

chyzar
edited July 17, 2022
There are a few names in my Zotero database that have punctuation or diacritical marks that turn into code in my document (I'm using Google Docs). For example, the name O'Toole comes out as O\uc0\u8217{}Toole and Papoušek comes out as Papou\uc0\u353{}ek. I don't have this problem with other names with an apostrophe or accent mark. How can I fix it? Thanks!
  • adomasven
    Can you export those items as Zotero RDF, upload them somewhere and post a link here (or send it to support@zotero.org)?
  • chyzar
    Sure, I'll email them.
  • chyzar
    I have sent the files over.
  • adomasven
    Do you see this issue in a new google document? What citation style are you using?
  • chyzar
    I don't see the issue in a new document. We're using APA 7.
  • adomasven
    See Troubleshooting Errors in Word Processor Documents
  • chyzar
    I have tried all of these steps already, that's why I'm asking for help. The one thing I haven't yet tried on this doc is the deleting-by-halves. There are two specific citations that are having problems. Do you have any specific suggestions to address the problem?
  • dstillman
    edited July 26, 2022
    That's the most important step on the page. As it says, unless you can clear the entire contents of the document and still reproduce the problem, that step will be definition isolate the problem in the existing document, both to get you back to work and to let you provide a simple test case that lets us fix it if possible.

    (Use File → "Make a copy" and do this in a copy of the document.)
  • chyzar
    Do I understand correctly that it could be a different citation or something else in the document causing these citations with special characters to display incorrectly? If so, do I delete parts of the document that don't contain these references, to see what other part it might be? How do you recommend working around the two citations that are displaying wrong?
  • chyzar
    OK, I followed that protocol, and when I got to the point of deleting all of the text except the two citations and refreshed Zotero, nothing happened. However, I decided to try just entering the citations as if they were new and deleting the old ones, and that worked. Problem solved for now.
  • dstillman
    edited July 27, 2022
    Just for future reference, the point of the steps really is just to cut it down quickly using a binary search, not to spend much time thinking about what parts you're removing. Even with a thousand citations, it would only take about 10 cuts to get to a single citation.

    If you can provide an excerpt of the document that reproduces the problem, please send a link to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread so we can try to fix it.
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