Issues with Long Document Refresh Times and Manually Edited Citations in APA 7 on MacBook with Word

casasmarti
Hello everyone,

I'm currently working on a very long document—around 500 pages—using Zotero for all my citations in APA 7 style, and I'm using Zotero on a MacBook Pro through Word. I've run into a couple of issues now that I've combined all my files into one large document.

Firstly, I've noticed that refreshing the document to update the bibliography and in-text citations takes an incredibly long time. I usually leave my computer to handle the process while I attend to other tasks, but I've encountered a recurring problem. Specifically, some of my citations involve quoting an author who was cited in another work. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to do this automatically in APA 7 using Zotero, so I've had to manually edit these citations in the text.

E. G.: (Garcia, 2021, as cited in Albert, 2023). “Albert, 2023)” is linked to Zotero.

The problem is that when Zotero starts refreshing the document, it triggers notifications alerting me that certain citations have been manually edited. It asks whether I want to keep these manual edits or revert to Zotero's automatic formatting. However, if I’m not there to respond immediately, it seems like the refresh process pauses or even stops. When I return to check on the progress, I often find an error message saying that Zotero couldn't continue the process.

Given that I'm working with a 500-page document on a MacBook Pro with Word, I’d really appreciate any advice on how to handle this situation. Is there a way to prevent Zotero from sending these notifications for manually edited citations, so that the refresh process can continue uninterrupted? Alternatively, is there a method to create these "citation of citations" automatically in APA 7 with Zotero, so that I can avoid manual edits altogether?

Thanks in advance for your help!
  • adomasven
    The best option is to split your document into multiple chapters, run a refresh there and mark those citations for Zotero to keep your edits, then recombine your document. Another option is to refresh your document on a Windows machine (or a Windows VM running on your Mac), where the refresh will be much faster.

    Sorry for the trouble. We should have a Word Online plugin available in a not-too-distant future that will be much faster even for Mac users.
  • casasmarti
    Thank you so much for your response!

    I definitely look forward to the release of the Word Online plugin, as I believe it would greatly improve my workflow. I also want to try running the refresh on Windows, as you suggested.

    However, splitting the document is not feasible for me at the moment due to the specific nature of my project. Since I'm working with such a long document, there are changes in the bibliography that need to be refreshed all at once. For example, there are authors with the same surname, so I need to initialize their first names according to APA 7 guidelines. Additionally, there are authors who published in the same year, so I need to ensure that they are ordered correctly both in the text and the reference list with letters (A, B, C, etc.).

    These details make it difficult to manage the document in separate parts, so I need to handle everything together.

    Thanks again for your help, and I'm eagerly awaiting any updates!
  • adomasven
    For example, there are authors with the same surname, so I need to initialize their first names according to APA 7 guidelines.
    Note that if you have correctly entered the metadata for those authors in your Zotero database then Zotero will automatically and correctly do this for you. You should not do this by manually modifying the citations in text. To test that this is true you can try it in a small sample document and see that Zotero actually does this formatting correctly.
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