problems with zotero bibliography from different word files

natatovia
Hi i'm working on a paper and I previosly used zotero for creating and editing the bibliography
the reviewers send me back the paper and i'm not able anymore to modify zotero bibliography in the new word file which has been corrected by them, that is, when i try to modify the citations, they are not linked anymore. if i try to modify a citation in the text it just starts from citation 1 insted of following the previous order.
how can i do? it is possible to restore the connection in zotero in a new file word?
i already tried to copy the final text in my previous word file but it didn't work
note that i'm using docx and i have the latest version of word
thank you it is very urgent!
  • dstillman
    Nothing to do with multiple files — they just saved the files in the wrong format.

    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected
  • natatovia
    ok thank you so there is nothing that i can do?
    i just have to reinsert every single citation in the new format?
    i can't convert the file into office because when i sent them the first document in docx they just converted it in odt and now the two files don't match anymore
  • dstillman
    See the end of that page for your options.
  • natatovia
    Ok i have read the page and i see there is nothing to do
    one last question i'm sorry
    i converted the preexisting file with my bibliography into .odt and it works.
    however
    than there is any way to reimport the bibliography of my first file to the file corrected by reviewer which is also in odt ?
    thank you very much
  • adomasven
    You can try merging your document with linked citations to the reviewed one by using the Merge Document feature. Although as the document was edited in Microsoft Word, this may not work very well. See https://help.libreoffice.org/6.2/en-US/text/shared/guide/redlining_docmerge.html
  • adamsmith
    I believe when we last tested this, merging documents removed field codes (i.e. linked citations) unfortunately
  • natatovia
    I remember using the copy and paste tool with my.previous paper and it worked Well since it automatically linked the citations correctly even if the file was corrected by reviewer
    I do not understand why this does not work now
    I think there is a way otherwise every researcher would have serious problems
  • adamsmith
    copy and paste will absolutely work -- assuming citations are still active, which they're not in this case, because you saved the document in a format that didn't preserve the links. That's why this issue isn't affecting many other users.

    Word's merge/compare document function unfortunately will not preserve linked Zotero citations unless they're in both documents.
  • natatovia
    so, now i reinserted all the bibliography using the format .odt since it is the same used by reviewers.
    once i have finished i reopened the file and the connection with zotero disappeared. do i have to restart again? is it possible?
    last time i didn't have any trouble with zotero and word i'm exhausted
  • dstillman
    No, you have to save as .docx, Word's default format. And if the reviewers are editing the file in LibreOffice, you'd have to switch to Bookmarks mode in the plugin's Document Preferences window, which will allow the citations to remain intact even if they use LibreOffice, as long as they continue saving as .docx.

    But if the reviewers don't know anything about Zotero and are editing the document in LibreOffice, it's generally easiest to just make a copy of the document, use Unlink Citations, submit the flattened document to them, and then either reapply their edits to your original document or just edit citations manually in the returned document from that point forward.

    In any case, if you only saved your existing document in .odt, then yes, you flattened the citations again. This is in no way a bug — Zotero citations are just standard Word fields, and you're saving the document in a file format that breaks those.
  • natatovia
    ok..
    since i reinserted bibiography with zotero while using the .odt format, i tought that it would have saved all the connections
    it doesn't make sense that zotero let me insert the bibliography with zotero in the odt format if it is not possible to work with it. once i have saved everything, when i opened again the file, the connection were just lost
    i think the reviewers will keep correcting files with office so there is nothing to do
    but one last question for the future
    do i have to save always my documents as docx and insert the bibliography only in docx format?
  • dstillman
    Yes, again, you always have to save your document as .docx, which is the default Word format. If you go out of your way to save in another, non-Microsoft format, you will break your citations.

    When Word is open, Zotero doesn't know how you're going to save the file — it's just an open Word document at that point. Saving is something you do in Word, not with Zotero, and saving as .odt just strips the Word fields that Zotero and similar programs use for citations. There's nothing we can do about that.
  • natatovia
    thank you
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