Recommendations for services to sync Word docs with Zotero fields

crystaljjlee · 2026-03-11T14:25:23+00:00

I've been syncing my Word documents with active Zotero fields on my computer using iCloud, only to discover that iCloud has been compressing the documents, flattening the Zotero citation fields and turning them into plaintext. This makes it impossible to generate bibliographies or otherwise use Zotero's other magical abilities.

What cloud storage services do other folks use to sync Zotero-enabled documents across computers? Do folks have recommendations for services to use to make sure that Zotero fields remain intact when automatically synced? I know that Google Drive is dangerous since you risk accidentally opening the Word document in Google Docs, but I don't know if there are similar compression issues with Dropbox, Box, etc.

I do have backups, but it feels silly to go through Time Machine or Backblaze to retrieve documents I had open yesterday, since those are fundamentally cloud backup services, not sync.

Markdown isn't rendering for this comment, but here's some of the documentation I've read already, which don't quite address this issue since they're more about moving word processors or syncing Zotero libraries/PDFs:

- Why isn’t Zotero detecting my existing citations?
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/existing_citations_not_detected
- Sync preferences
https://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/sync
- Sync documentation
https://www.zotero.org/support/sync#file_syncing

Thanks!

dstillman · 2026-03-11T14:28:40+00:00

I mean, Google Drive is fine — just don't open and edit the documents in Google Docs (without transferring them properly).

But I'm also not sure what you mean re: iCloud Drive. Unless you're actually opening the documents in iCloud/Pages, that shouldn't be modifying the transferred files in any way. iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc., should all be fine. They're just file-transfer services.

You can also store them in MS Sharepoint and open them directly in the desktop version of Word.

crystaljjlee · 2026-03-11T14:36:48+00:00

Thanks for the quick response! Re: iCloud -- basically, I save the Word docs on my computer in iCloud drive with citations intact, and by the time I open the document again (sometimes on a different computer, but still in Word), I find that the file has been compressed in storage and the citations turned into plaintext. Looking at Apple-related forums it seems that other people experience lossy file compression issues too, but those are usually video and raw photos -- huge files compared to a Word doc.

Good to know that these other services work! Will try those instead. Thank you :)

dstillman · 2026-03-11T14:52:23+00:00

There's almost no chance that iCloud Drive is doing this. I'm not going to vouch for iCloud Drive as a great file-sync service, but it would massive flaw if it was modifying the files you put in it. It's almost inconceivable. If you can reproduce this — by saving a .docx file in iCloud Drive from Word and then going to open it on another computer and finding the citations flattened — we'd want to know, but I don't think you'll be able to. You're almost certainly opening and resaving the files some other way. (Again, that could include opening them in iCloud online, or opening them in Pages, or even opening them somehow on iOS.)