Citations unlinking when combining Word documents from multiple coauthors

setophaga
Apologies if this has been posted before, but I haven't come across a solution for this particular problem in the forum.

I sent a Word document to multiple coauthors for review. Before emailing them, I unlinked the Zotero citations, but kept a separate copy of the manuscript with citations linked.

I've now been trying to use the "combine documents" feature in Word to get all coauthor comments and edits into a single manuscript. However, when I try to combine their individual versions (all .docx files with unlinked citations) into my copy (with linked citations preserved), the merged version has flattened links, even when I opt to use the formatting of my copy.

Based on this post (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected) I assume it's an issue with coauthors using different word processors.

Are there any additional steps I should be taking to keep the linked citations from my master version? Or is this just not possible in Word's combine documents function? With 10+ coauthors, I'd really like to avoid copying and pasting.

Thanks in advance!
  • adamsmith
    Nothing to do with your co-authors word processors.
    Quick testing suggests that Word indeed flattens all field codes when combining documents (both in Combine and in Compare mode), so I don't see a way to do this, nor do I see anything on this with a quick google search.
  • setophaga
    Thanks for verifying - I couldn't tell if I was doing something wrong on the Word side.

    I've been playing around with this and combining two Word drafts that each have linked citations *does* seem to preserve them in the merged version. Apparently this is only an issue when one (or more) of the drafts have flattened / unlinked citations.

    As a follow-up question: I thought the general recommendation is to unlink before sending documents to coauthors, since they obviously don't have your personal Zotero library. But if you share a linked version, will the in-text citations and bibliography not show up properly for them at all? Just wanting to know if I should always share Word drafts with linked citations if I plan on combining documents.

    Thanks again!
  • adamsmith
    As a follow-up question: I thought the general recommendation is to unlink before sending documents to coauthors, since they obviously don't have your personal Zotero library. But if you share a linked version, will the in-text citations and bibliography not show up properly for them at all? Just wanting to know if I should always share Word drafts with linked citations if I plan on combining documents.
    The recommendation to unlink is mostly when sending final versions to publishers, whose systems may have conflicts with the linked citations. For co-author groups, I'd leave the field codes in and ask co-authors to not edit citations manually. If they do have Zotero, they actually can edit them with the Zotero add-on: they don't need your library (though co-authoring without a shared group library does have some disadvantages: only the person who inserted an item would be able to edit its metadata if there are typos or updated versions)
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