unable to edit citation in word

aussie1
New to Zotero, I posted this in the plugin section, but it looks like that forum is intended for 3rd party plugins....This is appears to be a bug.

Using Zotero on a 64bit Windows Vista machine with Word 2007. It has been working fine until the latest beta update. Using the Word for Windows plugin vesion 3.0a3.

I can:
insert a new citation
insert a bibliography
edit a bibliography

However, we I can to edit a citation, it gives me the error, "You must place the cursor in a Zotero citation to edit it."

But the cursor is in the citation. The problem did not occur with previous versions.

Are there any plans to fix this bug in the immediate term? I'm submitting my thesis in three weeks and the timing of this new bug is...inconvenient.
  • gunikus
    I am having the exact same problem. I have used Zotero for over a year on this system and have never had this problem before
  • shakp
    I too have been using Zotero for a long time, and this problem has just started up. My partner had the same problem for a couple of days, but it somehow fixed itself.
  • dstillman
    If you're experiencing this, you need to say what versions of Zotero and the plugin you're using and whether this occurs in new documents or only some existing documents. If the latter, see Debugging Broken Documents.

    Make sure you've installed the latest version of the plugin (with Word closed).
  • shakp
    I'm using Zotero 2.0b7.4 and winword integration 3.0a3
    For both me the problem was in an old document with citations; for my partner it was an old doc. The problem has now disappeared for me too! Everything works fine.
  • MXKRSA
    I've just posted a message concerning the same problem without realising that it's already been reported.
  • P Hudson
    I've got a long document (c. 100 pages) that I reworked from Endnote to Zotero out of an interest in supporting open environment. Everything was fine until today, when my Word Mac 2008 opened with an empty automater folder. I put the Zotero scripts back in, and now I get proper script menus and can insert citations, but am unable to edit them. It is clear that Word is no longer treating my citations (all in footnotes) as citations: the message I get when I go to a citation and hit the command to edit is, "You must insert a citation before performing this operation".
  • Jacob.Krumrey
    I have a similar problem. The Word plugin does not allow me to edit citations, telling me that I have to place the cursor in a Zotero citation (where, in fact, it is already).

    This problem occurs also in completely new documents. I have tried to change the style – but the problem persists. Following some suggestions from the forums, I have also tried to insert the footnote in Word myself and then to insert the Zotero reference directly into the footnote, which did not help, either. When possible, I also tried to switch from fields to bookmarks – this, too, failed to help.

    Right now, the only way seems to be to give up on footnotes completely (which my style would require, though) and insert an author-date style reference into the text body itself – that works, both in the field and as well as bookmark mode.

    Nonetheless, I was wondering if there is a way to make it work for footnotes, too – or rather to make it work again as I did not have that problem with earlier versions of the Zotero plugin for Word (I have not needed it for several month and hence updated the plugin only some days ago).

    I use:

    Zotero 2.0.2.
    Word plugin 3.0a3
    Firefox 3.6
    Word 2003
    on a Windows Vista PC

    Thanks in advance
  • fbennett
    edited May 12, 2010
    I can report some new information about this behavior. This is most definitely a bug.

    The platform and environment is Intel 32-bit, Windows Vista, Firefox 3.6.3, Zotero 2.0.2, WinWord Integration 3.0a3, Word 2007.

    What we see here is that after opening a freshly created document, and creating a note containing a Zotero reference -- either implicitly (with a footnote style), or via Word followed by the insertion of an author-date reference -- an attempt to edit the Zotero reference throws the "You must place the cursor in a Zotero citation to edit it" error. Always.

    An author-date reference in the text of the document is unaffected by the bug. An implictly created note will show the error, but when the style is switched to author-date and the reference appears in the text, the error goes away. Switching back to a footnote style will make the bug return.

    This behavior is consistent with the reports above in this thread -- note that the user who reported that it affected author-date styles complained of the error in a footnote.

    Our new information is that the bug only occurs when there is exactly one reference in the document. Adding a second reference will make the error disappear, for all citations, including the first one in the document.

    If this behavior can be confirmed by another Windows user with the 3.0a3 plugin, it definitely wants to be placed on the fixit list.

    But for the time being, just adding another reference can be used as a hackaround.
  • buchberger
    I can confirm what fbennett says. I am using the 3.0a3 plugin with Zotero 2.0.3, Windows XP. It only happens on new documents for me. Old ones work just fine. I submitted an error report, ID: 940110477. Another workaround I've found in the meantime is to save an old document that doesn't get the error with a new name, delete most of it (be sure to leave at least one Zotero citation!), and start your new document at the end of the remaining text. New citations will work fine because it's an existing document with existing Zotero citations. But if you delete all the citations, it treats it as a new document and gives the error again.
  • pkhoosh
    I have the problem where I pasted text into a new Microsoft Office 2007 Word document and Zotero (v2.0.3,WinWord Integration v3.0a4) does not generate a bibliography because it does not think there are any citations; this is because all the citations are copied and pasted (still with Zotero field codes, i.e., they're gray when moused over).

    I appreciate any suggestions. One of the workarounds I tried from another forum post was to insert a citation under the assumption that would then help generate a bibliography with all the old citations. However, this does not work because the bibliography then only has one citation instead of all the other references in the text.
Sign In or Register to comment.