Two Export problems with citations and bibliographical items in OOo

I am using the latest Zotero/OOo-plugin/OOo software in German. There are two minor bugs (besides general import/export problems):

1. When I am working in OOo and insert a short citation in the text using the toolbar, a symbol (square) is occuring after the citation. It looks like this:

(Habermas, 1995) 

instead of: (Habermas, 1995)

2. When copying a bibliographical item of a Book (German: Buch) to clipboard or to OOo, there is an "undefined" message in the citation at the place of "edition". It looks like this:

Habermas, Jürgen (2001) Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen 9undefined ed., Frankfurt/Main, Suhrkamp.

It should read like this:

Habermas, Jürgen (2001) Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen 9. Aufl., Frankfurt/Main, Suhrkamp.

The "undefined" is wrong; also in German "9. ed." should read "9. Aufl.". So this is partly a software (import/export) error, partly a translation problem.

Question: Is it easy to edit the styles for oneself (make "Ausg.", "S." instead of "ed." and "p.")?

Thanks and all the best!
Helga
  • Helga: this ("ed." vs. "aufl.") is a bug in the locales files Zotero uses to format the references and citations. You can see an example of the German one here. As you can see, there are some missing translations there.

    If you'd like to contribute them, I'm guessing that'd be the quickest way to fix it, though perhaps one of the Zotero people can confirm if they have a preferred protocol for doing that. If not, you can just download that file, edit it, and send it me (see my profile).
  • The locales can be edited at BabelZilla.org. We should have an updated XPI there shortly for editing.
  • edited January 9, 2008
    I was just doing the translation but had serious problems to find a right editor and managing the UFT-coding etc. I couldn't just do that in Firefox. So: I have the knowledge to translate it, but I need an exact advice how to work with the document so that I can produce a useful translation.
    So maybe you just tell me how to edit this document right in firefox or suggest an editor (editing in the notepad is painful :( ), send me the link to the correct babelzilla document or whatever is useful...
    Sorry... hope I can help though...
  • I just translated a file (de-DE) using the NVU-editor and mailed it to bdarcus. Hopefully this can help in the case.
  • The locales are currently maintained at Babelzilla.org, as Sean mentioned. The Zotero project can be found at the following link, although you will need a Babelzilla account to see it:

    http://www.babelzilla.org/index.php?option=com_wts&Itemid=88&extension=2864&type=lang

    On Babelzilla.org you can edit locale files online via a web interface. If nobody has registered as a translator for the locale you are interested in, you can register yourself as the translator for a that locale. If somebody else already has registered him/herself as a translator for that locale (already three people are registered as a translator for the German translation), you have to contact this person so he/she can add you as an additional translator. If you spot just one or a few errors in the translation work, or have some comments, it might be easier to post a message in the Babelzilla forum at the Zotero´s thread:

    http://www.babelzilla.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=2328

    Alternatively, you could look up who translates your locale of interest and send him/her an email describing the problems you encountered with that translation. Both these solutions still require a Babelzilla account though.
  • helga: I didn't know about Babelzilla when I posted earlier. It might be worth following Rintze's suggestion and using the work you did toward that end.
  • thanks, Rintze, I'll see what could be done there.
  • edited January 10, 2008
    I registered at Babelzilla but I can only find the locales for the Zotero program itself there - not for the citation styles.
    Besides I encountered that in different citation styles (Harvard, APA etc.) Zotero produces different errors. Sometimes it's "p." or "S.." instead of "S.", sometimes it's "hrsg. Autor" instead of "Autor (Hrsg.)" or "hrsg. von Autor".
    As I have the (academic) knowledge I really would like to help on that case, but I can't find the place to get started... :(
    Anyone can tell me where is the forum to get involved?

    P.S.: The error with the edition (above, 1st post) is partly solved now, but still wrong. It produces:

    Habermas, J. (2001). Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen (9). Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

    instead of:

    Habermas, J. (2001). Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. 9. Aufl., Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

    or (also possible):

    Habermas, J. (92001). Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.
  • The locale files have been updated recently to version 1.02. It seems that the locales.xml file is indeed missing for several, if not all locales (neither the Dutch and German locales have it). This file contains the translations used by the citation styles.
  • edited January 10, 2008
    The locales.xml files are now available on BabelZilla for editing. Thanks for your patience.
  • The locales.xml cannot be edited online on babelzilla. Possibly only by registered translators, so I've sent them a mail.
  • edited January 11, 2008
    Thanks for working on the locale. I'm sure the BZ translators will give you the same information, but here goes:

    For locales.xml you need to click BZ's download button, edit the downloaded copy, and then upload it back to BZ. You'll need to be a registered translator to make this happen, and you'll want to be sure that you're saving the file as UTF-8.
  • Sean, are you subscribed to the Babelzilla forum thread for Zotero? There are some problems with the locales.xml files. With the exception of the en-US template, all localized locales.xml-files have a structure with incorrect markup (<terms> is closed two times with </terms> tags, some entries are present twice), so it seems the files aren't merged/converted correctly.
  • There are some problems with the locales.xml files. With the exception of the en-US template, all localized locales.xml-files have a structure with incorrect markup ( is closed two times with tags, some entries are present twice), so it seems the files aren't merged/converted correctly.
    As far as we know, this is a BabelZilla bug. All of the locales.xml files in the XPI we uploaded are fine. We fix them manually when we repackage them from BZ.

    You can safely ignore the extra data at the end.
  • edited January 30, 2008
    I haven't yet found out where's the right place to inform about translation errors of the citation styles. Neither did I manage to participate on that project. I just failed to overlook the whole process.

    Well, here are still some errors (using Harvard author-date style in OpenOffice 2.3) which just make zotero kind of useless for German texts. Maybe the right place to tell about it is just here :) Any information about this will get changed? Thanks!

    wrong: (Höffe 1995, p.55)

    should be: (Höffe 1995, S. 55) [including space between "S." and "55".]

    wrong: Habermas, J., 2001. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen 9undefined ed., Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

    should be: Habermas, J., 2001. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen 9. Aufl., Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

    and

    wrong: Höffe, O. hrsg., 1995. Aristoteles: Die Nikomachische Ethik, Berlin.

    should be: Höffe, O. (Hg.), 1995. Aristoteles: Die Nikomachische Ethik, Berlin.
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