Troubleshooting Zotero linked to Google Document

courtchoy
My librarian highly recommended this forum, so hello!

There are two major challenges that I have been facing with Zotero, and I would appreciate any advice/support:

I have >100 citations in a shared Google Document and it takes several minutes (5-10 minutes) for citations to be edited/refreshed. When I reorganize sentences (copy and pasting), my citations are not refreshing properly. For example, citation will be out of order (#114 is in the first sentence and #1 in the second sentence). Both sentences are still linked to my shared Zotero library (not just like https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?abc123, as is mentioned in the documentation, but as an active Zotero link with the "edit with Zotero" context-sensitive menu.

Sometimes my citations has become unlinked, and I select to re-link the citation to my Zotero library, there are now references with more than one citation #. For example, Reference X et al. will be cited in the bibliography as #68 and #102. The Zotero library does not have a duplicate reference, and there is only one X et al. reference.

  • adomasven
    Generally we don't recommend using Zotero with Google Docs on documents that are very long. The Zotero plugin may slow down significantly in large Google Docs documents due to technical limitations of the editor.

    After copying and pasting citations, the numbers will be updated once you press Zotero -> Refresh.

    If you have multiple entries in the bibliography for what seems to be the same item, it is because two different Zotero items with the same metadata have been cited in this document. This could be because your colleague cited the item from their library, you cited this item from both a group and your personal library, you had the item in your library, cited it, then deleted it and reimported it, or you might even just have two copies of that same item in your library now. Whichever it is, the simplest option to fix it is to remove all citations of that item from the document and then reinsert them, making sure you select the same item. In the future make sure you and your collaborators only cite items from a shared group library, and that items are not accidentally deleted and then reinserted into the library from the source. If you accidentally delete an item, you should restore it from Zotero trash instead.
  • kate.nyhan
    Hi -- I'm a collaborator of courtchoy. Thanks for the info.

    Q1 When we are talking about Google Docs that are very long, are we talking about the number of pages/words in the document? Or the number of citations?

    Q2 If I were working with a Word doc and having trouble with Zotero, I'd start by making a separate copy so that I can troubleshoot/tweak without making things worse. In the context of a Google doc, can I do that? Well, obviously, I can make a copy, but it is possible that after I connect the new document to the group Zotero library, it could potentially cause problems in the group library and the original document?
  • adamsmith
    1. Both, though primarily number of citations (>100 becomes iffy I'd say, but no hard number)
    2. If you make a copy of a google doc it will be connected to Zotero exactly the same way, so you can use the exact same troubleshooting steps, yes
  • adomasven
    @kate.nyhan @adamsmith

    1. On Google Docs the number of citations is a relatively small factor. Most important is document length/complexity (figures, tables, etc).
    2. Documents (or their copies) cannot modify and thus cause issues in your Zotero library or other documents (e.g. original from which the copy is made). This applies both to Word and Google Docs documents.
  • kate.nyhan
    1. I bet that's the problem. We have wonderful tables with rich data extracted from a lot of papers in our scoping review -- very big tables.
    2. Good to know, thanks.
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