Issues with alphabetical or chronological order with automatic in-text citations

MargotAvella · 2026-07-08T14:02:59+00:00

Hi,

I am using Zotero with the APA 7th edition citation style in Microsoft Word, and I have noticed that when I have multiple citations within the same bracket, they are being ordered chronologically (oldest to newest) rather than alphabetically by surname, as required by APA 7th.

For example, Zotero is producing: (Zanjan et al., 2021; Delporto et al., 2022; Almeida et al., 2023)

When it should be: (Almeida et al., 2023; Delporto et al., 2022; Zanjan et al., 2021)

I have already tried the following without success:
- Verified I am using the APA 7th edition style
- Uninstalled and reinstalled the latest version of the APA 7th CSL file from zotero.org/styles
- Refreshed the citations in my Word document after reinstalling

The bibliography at the end of the document appears to be in correct alphabetical order, the issue is specifically with the ordering of multiple citations within the same in-text bracket.

Has anyone encountered this issue and found a fix? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

damnation · 2026-07-08T14:08:38+00:00

Our APA7 style sorts alphabetically as per APA guidelines.
Make sure you have the "Keep sources sorted" option checked:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u452233/bz7bw4lqxw3x6zwz4yv0.png

MargotAvella · 2026-07-08T14:20:48+00:00

Thank you so much for your quick response. I just checked and it's already checked. I know that it's supposed to already sort out the references alphabetically, and I really don't understand why it does not do so :(

MargotAvella · 2026-07-08T14:21:16+00:00

Sorry, I should be clearer: the 'keep sources sorted' option is already checked.

adamsmith · 2026-07-08T14:29:49+00:00

Can you try in a new document? If it works there, can you take a screenshot of the Zotero document preferences for the document where it doesn't work?

MargotAvella · 2026-07-08T14:45:48+00:00

Thank you for your quick response. I tried in a new empty document and the references appeared in the correct alphabetical order. I then went back to my original document and clicked on one of the problematic in-text citations as if I wanted to edit it, then pressed Enter without making any changes. After doing this, the references within that citation reordered correctly into alphabetical order.
However, this only fixed the one citation I clicked on. Given that this is a 37-page document, I am wondering whether there is a way to apply this fix to all citations at once, rather than having to click on each one individually? But thank you so much as your message was very helpful!!

adamsmith · 2026-07-08T14:50:13+00:00

Try switching to a different citation style and back?

MargotAvella · 2026-07-08T16:12:25+00:00

I thought this was a great suggestion, thank you so much, I did it but unfortunately it did not work. I will go through it all and change it manually, but thank you so much for your quick responses everyone, this is much appreciated.