Bibliography Question

nateoman
I am finalizing a book manuscript. I have a word file for each chapter. I need to have a bibliography for the entire book. I tried cutting and pasting all of the chapters into a monster file and then generating a bibliography. Problem: The manuscript is about 600 pages and has about 2,000 footnotes. The resulting file is too big to easily use and Zotero has a really hard time handling it, e.g. freezing, failing to update, etc.

Is there any other way of generating a bibliography from multiple files?
  • adamsmith
    What word processor, what operating system? Generally speaking, what you are doing is the right approach, though I would recommend waiting until you are completely done with anything citation related, then merge, create the bibliography, save a copy of the document and unlink citations.
  • nateoman
    I'm using Microsoft word on Mac OS 12.6.3
  • adamsmith
    Right, so Word for Mac is the slowest possible combo and I'm not surprised you're having a terrible experience with that size of a document.
    If it's possible to do the final assembly on Windows, that'll be much smoother. The Windows machine would need Word and Zotero, of course, but it wouldn't need your Zotero library.
  • HelenMagowan
    Hi, I'm in the same situation as nateoman for a PhD thesis. I have three chapters in three separate MS Word documents, with three separate bibliographies.

    I'm worried about merging my documents because the file sizes are 110 MB, 185 MB and 45 MB respectively (lots of pictures). The monster document is gonna be enormous and I'm worried my laptop might die. I really can't afford for it to die just now :)

    Is there another way around that's not merging the documents?
    I'm using Juris-M not Zotero, MS Word and plugin, and Windows 11 PC.
  • adamsmith
    What exactly are you trying to achieve (i.e. a way around to do what exactly) if it's not merging the documents?
  • HelenMagowan
    I would like to make a single bibliography for my thesis. I had made small bibliographies for each chapter because I just assumed I'd be able to smoosh them all together somehow or other. I'm not planning on merging into one file because of the file size (I was planning to make it into a PDF when it's all done) but if it's that or make a collection within my zotero library then I'll have to make a choice between those two options.

    I would appreciate any advice or suggestions :)
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