Quick copy not in correct citation style

2024ZoteroQuestions
I'm using Zotero 6.0.37 on a desktop on a Mac alongside Google Docs. Quick Copy is not generating the correct in-text citation style.

This is what I've tried:

-In Zotero under Settings>Export>Quick Copy>Item Format, I select American Sociological Association 6th/7th Edition.

-In the Google Doc, I've changed the Style under the drop down "Document Preferences" tab to American Sociological Association 6th/7th Edition.

In-text citations in ASA should look like this: "(Author Date:Page Number). But when I drag an annotation from a PDF in Zotero to the document, the in-text citation which results looks like this: "(Author, 2021, p. 4) (pdf)."

This is incorrect. Why is it doing this? I've restarted Google Docs and Zotero five plus times.

Note: If I copy over a quote manually and then use Ctrl-Command-C, the in-text citation generates correctly in proper ASA format.
  • dstillman
    edited April 20, 2024
    Dragged annotations currently just use the default APA-style citation format you get when you drag annotations to Zotero notes. This is a workflow that's currently meant primarily for things like personal knowledge bases (hence the the PDF link back to Zotero), not submitted documents with bibliographic citations.

    To add annotations to a document in a supported word processor, add them to a Zotero note, and then insert the note into your document with the plugin's Add Note button. The citations will then be inserted in the style you've selected using the plugin's Document Preferences window, as if you had used Add/Edit Citation.

    Future versions will improve on this, including allowing annotations to be inserted directly via the plugin without being added to a note first. We'll likely also make the citation format of dragged annotations configurable via Quick Copy, but you generally wouldn't use that in a supported word processor — that's what the plugins are for.

    https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-6/#adding_notes_to_word_processors
  • Gwbrck
    That sounds excellent. Will there be an option to export with citation keys?
  • vivko
    +1 I'm looking so much forward to a feature that allows to configure dragged annotations in a format with citation keys instead of the default APA-style!
  • yodaliu
    Look forwards to the feature that allows customized citation style while dragging annotation
  • nicolas.lienart
    Also interested, I know that annotation citations comes with a link (which is wonderful for my workflow) to my Zotero and colleagues won't be able to read. But still, my colleagues have enough context: authors, year and page, so it's still possible to retrieve relevant information without the link. I would like to be able to customize the citation though, like for having up to 3 authors shown before having et al. (like with cite them right).
  • trechicostate
    Is there an open GitHub Issue for this? I found this [https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/2890], but it seems like it might not be referring to citation styles. It's a pretty confusing UX to have citation style in Document Preferences, only to have it refer to the bibliography alone. There is usually one bibliography per paper, but many in-text citations, so it's a significantly more common use case. It's weird to allow Quick Copy at all if the user's citation style is ignored. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.

    All that said, I love Zotero, and it has immeasurably boosted my research productivity! Thanks
  • dstillman
    edited 25 days ago
    @trechicostate: Yes, it sounds like you're misunderstanding. This is about dragging annotations via Quick Copy. As I say above, Quick Copy doesn't have anything to do with word processor integration.
    It's a pretty confusing UX to have citation style in Document Preferences, only to have it refer to the bibliography alone.
    The citation style you set in the plugin's Document Preferences applies to in-text citations and bibliographies that you create through the plugin ("Add/Edit Citation" and "Add/Edit Bibliography"). I'm not sure why you think it doesn't? See the word processor plugin documentation if you're unsure how to use the plugin.

    I explain above how to insert annotations with properly formatted citations into your word processor.
  • trechicostate
    @dstillman Thank you, I was mixing up a couple use cases there, and this helps me disentangle things. All I want to do is easily add source quotes along with in-text citations matching my style setting. It seemed intuitive to assume that Quick Copy would respect those settings, especially considering "Item Format" is under the "Quick Copy" heading in Zotero Settings. I appreciate that a workaround exists, I'm just surprised this isn't a feature that's more widely requested.
  • dstillman
    @trechicostate: It's not a "workaround" — the entire point of the Add Note feature is to let you insert notes containing annotations with active citations into your document. The idea is that you build up a note with annotations within Zotero and then insert that into the document. If that workflow doesn't work for you, you can do what you've always been able to do: copy and paste source text and then use the word processor plugin to insert active citations. As I say, it will be possible to insert individual annotations via the plugin in a future version.

    But it was just a misunderstanding that Quick Copy and word processor integration were mentioned together at all this thread. They're not related.
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