Citations and bibliographies generated by the word processor plugins might appear in a different style (font, font-size, etc) than the surrounding text. The appearance of the generated text can be changed by changing the default style. E.g. in LibreOffice, open the styles manager in 'Format' > 'Styles and Formatting' or by hitting F12. Right click on “Default”, select 'Modify', and make the desired changes to this style.

Bibliography formatting is controlled in the style file, and should conform to the requirements of the style in use. The formatting of the bibliography can be modified by editing the “Bibliography” (Word) or “Bibliography 1” (LibreOffice) style.

The Zotero word processor plugin will only work if you install the correct version. (Note that Zotero 2.0 uses a different plugin from Zotero 1.0.x, and Zotero 2.1 uses a different plugin from Zotero 2.0, so after upgrading Zotero you will also need to upgrade your plugin.) If you try to use an incompatible version of the plugin, you will receive an error message similar to:

“This version of the Zotero Word Plugin (1.0b4) is incompatible with the currently installed version of the Zotero Firefox extension (2.0.3). Please ensure that you are using the latest versions of both components.”

To solve this problem, install the correct version of the plugin.

If the problems persists after using the installer, remove the old version manually. For Windows Word and Word 2004 for Mac, remove the plugin file “Zotero.dot” completely from your Word startup folder, which you can locate by looking at the path in Tools→Templates and Add-ins within Word. For OpenOffice, remove the extension from the OpenOffice Extension Manager (and, if necessary, remove leftover files from the OpenOffice data directory, which may be necessary if OO fails to completely uninstall the extension). In either case, restart the word processor and ensure that the Zotero toolbar and all traces of the plugin are completely gone before attempting to reinstall.

If the Zotero toolbar (or Zotero scripts for Word 2008/2011 for Mac) does not appear, follow these steps:

1. Close Word or LibreOffice.
2. In Firefox or Zotero Standalone, go to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions. (If you don't see “Zotero Word for Mac Integration,” “Zotero Word for Windows Integration,” or “Zotero LibreOffice Integration” in Tools→Add-ons→Extensions, install them.)
3. Click the “Preferences”/“Options” button next to “Zotero Word for Mac Integration,” “Zotero Word for Windows Integration,” or “Zotero LibreOffice Integration”, depending on your operating system and word processor. Alternatively, you can find this option in the Zotero preferences under “Cite”–> “Word Processors”
4. Click “Reinstall Extension” and then restart your word processor.

In Word for Windows and Word 2004 for Mac, make sure that the Zotero toolbar is enabled in View→Toolbars, and ensure that Zotero.dot appears and is enabled in Word's Tools→Templates and Add-ins window.
In Word 2010, please note that the Zotero toolbar is in the “Add-Ins” tab on the ribbon.

Additional steps may be required for Word 2004, Word 2008/2011, and Word for Windows on some systems.

If you can insert citations into new documents but receive an error in an existing document, follow these steps to find the cause of the error:

1. Make sure the Track Changes feature in Word/LibreOffice/OpenOffice is disabled, as it is known to cause problems with Zotero integration. (With the most recent version of the plugins this should not be the case any more - to be safe, do still perform this step, though.) If you had Track Changes enabled previously, try accepting all changes to see if that resolves the issue.
2. Check for citations in image captions. Zotero won't let you insert them, but if you copied a citation to a caption that's most likely the source of the problem. Delete it.
3. Try copying and pasting the document content into a new document to see if the problem goes away. You may need to click the “Set Document Preferences” button before your old citations will be recognized.
4. Make a copy of your document—by duplicating the file itself, not by copying and pasting the content—to use for debugging.
5. Open the copied file and check if you get the error after switching to a different bibliography style.
6. If the document has a bibliography, delete it and check if you still get the error.
7. Check if “Report Errors…” in the Zotero Actions menu () is active and if new errors appear after attempting to insert a citation. If so, send in an error report and post the provided Report ID to the forums.
8. Try to isolate the problematic citation. Delete half of the document at a time and see if the error still occurs. If not, use Undo to restore the deleted section and then try deleting the other half. If you can reproduce the error in only one of the halves, repeat the halving process on the remaining section. Continue this until you find the problematic citation. Remove that citation from the original document and the problem should go away (unless there are multiple problematic citations, in which case you'll have to repeat the process). If you are able to find a problematic citation, you should also send that document excerpt to support@zotero.org so we can take a look at it. For all other discussion, please post to the forums.
9. While debugging, if you are using Fields mode in Word or Reference Marks mode in OpenOffice, it may help to display field codes rather than formatted text. To do this in Word, press Alt-F9 on Windows or Option-F9 (or Option-Function-9) on OS X. In OpenOffice, press Control-F9.

“Word could not communicate with Zotero. Please ensure Firefox or Zotero Standalone is running and try again.” Or plugin appears and buttons are clickable, but no insert citation window appears.

1. If you are using Zotero for Firefox, ensure that Zotero and Zotero Word for Windows Integration are enabled in Tools→Add-ons→Extensions
2. Make sure that you're running Zotero/Firefox as the same user as Word. The plugin will fail, e.g., if Zotero is run as administrator and Word as a regular user. For security reason you should typically not run any software as administrator.
3. If you use ZoneAlarm, disable ForceField, which is known to cause a communication error.
4. Windows plugins communicate with Firefox using the remote window. Thus, launching Firefox with the -no-remote command-line option will prevent the plugins from functioning. (You might do this if you have multiple Firefox profiles.) The solution is to remove the -no-remote command-line option from the shortcut used to launch the Firefox profile on which Zotero is installed. As long as all other profiles use the -no-remote option, you should be able to open them and the Zotero profile simultaneously.

If you are using Microsoft Office Starter Edition, Zotero Word integration is not supported.

After installing the latest Word plugin for Zotero on a system with a non-English version of Office, the toolbar may not appear in Word. Alternatively, after upgrading the plugin, you may receive a message saying that the plugin is incompatible with the installed version of Zotero.

These problems indicate that the new template was not installed into the correct location for your installation. By default, Zotero installs the template into your Word Startup directory. You may need to manually install the Zotero.dot file into the correct directory.

If you install Zotero with Word 2010 and receive an error stating

“Zotero experienced an error updating your document. [zoteroWinWordIntegration Exception… “Could not find a running Word instance.” code: “0” function: “zoteroWinWordDocument::initFromActiveObject” location: ”.\zoteroWinWordDocument.cpp”]“

you may be experiencing an issue relating to your Word 2010 installation method. Microsoft distributes a set of “Click-to-Run” versions of Office 2010 that are configured to run within their own virtual environment. Unfortunately, this virtual environment prohibits Zotero from communicating with these Word instances, producing an error.

You can fix this problem by switching your copy of Office 2010 from a Click-to-Run installation to a standard (MSI-based) installation. This process does not require an additional license. To do so, follow the steps under the “Workaround” heading on this page.

You may also experience this error if you are running either Word or Firefox as Administrator or in a compatibility mode in Windows Vista or 7, or if security software is interfering with Zotero's ability to communicate with Word.

Zotero's Word add-on currently does not work for documents in OneDrive. Move your document to a different folder. Other cloud-syncing services such as Dropbox or Google Drive are not affected. See this thread for details and developments.

When switching from a note-based style set to “Endnotes” under Set Document Preferences to a style that produces in-text citations (author-date or numerical), the citations remain in endnotes.

Workaround: Before switching to the in-text style, click on “Set Document Preferences” in the Word add-on and switch the format to “Footnotes.” Then switch to the in-text style. If you did already switch to the in-text style and are seeing this issue, switch back to the note-based style you were using, toggle to “Footnotes,” and switch back.

In Word 2016, the Zotero add-on is in a separate “Add-ins” tab. If you do not see that tab, follow the manual installation instructions. In many cases, you will just need to set up the standard start-up folder in Word and won't need to copy Zotero.dot as described.

If you getting no response when you attempt to use the Word plugin, try the following steps:

1. Restart Word and try again.
2. Close Word and go to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions in Firefox or Zotero Standalone. Make sure Zotero and Zotero Word for Mac Integration are listed and enabled. If not, reinstall them. If so, click its Preferences/Options button and click Reinstall Word Components. Restart Word and try again.

In Word 2011, this can also indicate an issue with Visual Basic for Applications. If the above steps do not resolve the issue, follow these steps for resolving Visual Basic for Applications-related issues.

First, check whether “Zotero Bibliographic Management” shows up in the View → Toolbars menu within Word. If it does but it isn't enabled, enable it.

If the Zotero option doesn't show up in that menu, try reinstalling the Word plugin from Zotero. In Zotero, go to the Cite pane of the Zotero preferences, click the “Reinstall Word Components” button, and then restart Word. If you're using Zotero for Firefox and don't see the option to reinstall the Word components, make sure you've installed the Word integration extension into Firefox. (This isn't necessary for Zotero Standalone.)

On a system with a non-English version of Office 2004 for Mac installed or with a non-administrator OS X user account, the toolbar may not appear in Word. Alternatively, after upgrading the plugin, you may receive a message saying that the plugin is incompatible with the installed version of Zotero. These problems indicate that the new template was not installed into the correct location for your installation. By default, Zotero installs the template into /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Startup/Word.

If you have a non-English version of Office, you may need to move the Zotero.dot file into the “Word” directory within the equivalent of “Startup” in your language and restart Word. The correct path should be listed in Tools→Templates and Add-ins in Word.

If you're using a non-admin OS X user account, you will need to install the Word plugin from an administrative account or grant write access for the startup directory to the non-admin account to allow it to install Zotero.dot.

After installing the latest Word plugin for Zotero on a system with a non-English version of Office 2008/2011 for Mac installed, the plugin scripts may not appear in Word. Alternatively, after upgrading the plugin, you may receive a message saying that the plugin is incompatible with the installed version of Zotero.

These problems indicate that the new scripts were not installed into the correct location. By default, Zotero installs the scripts into ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Word Script Menu Items or ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office/Word Script Menu Items if either of these folders exist, or asks where to install them if it does not. Since non-English versions of Office prior to Office 2011 SP2 do not use the Microsoft User Data folder, but rather a folder with an equivalent name in the Office language, this can be problematic for non-English Office users. There are three potential solutions:

1. If you have Office 2011, install the latest available updates. You can then reinstall the Word scripts from Zotero. In Zotero, go to the Cite pane of the Zotero preferences, click the “Reinstall Word Components” button, and then restart Word. If you're using Zotero for Firefox and don't see the option to reinstall the Word components, make sure you've installed the Word integration extension into Firefox. (This isn't necessary for Zotero Standalone.)
2. If you have only non-English versions of Office installed, you can delete the Microsoft User Data folder if it contains nothing other than the Zotero scripts. You can then re-install the Zotero scripts by going to Tools→Add-ons→Extensions, clicking the “Preferences” button next to Zotero Word for Mac Integration, and clicking the “Reinstall Word Components” button.
3. If you have both English and non-English versions of Office installed, you should copy the Zotero folder from ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items to the equivalent folder for your non-English version of Office. You can find the correct directory by selecting “About This Menu…” (or non-English equivalent) from the script menu and clicking “Open Folder”.

Some Word 2011 users may see the following message upon attempting to insert a citation or bibliography into any Word document using the Script menu:

“Zotero could not perform this action. Please ensure that a document is open. If you have performed a custom installation of Office, you may need to run the installer again, ensuring that “Visual Basic for Applications” is selected.”

Attempting to use the Zotero toolbar may result in no response, accompanied by an error message reading “Word could not fire event” when closing the document.

This error indicates that Visual Basic for Applications is malfunctioning, which may happen for several reasons:

• Office 2011 may have been installed without Visual Basic for Applications. If you did not select Visual Basic for Applications during installation, or if you're not sure, reinstall Office 2011, making sure to select this option.

• A character with an accent or diacritic may be present in the path to Microsoft Word (e.g., in the name of your hard disk).

• The OLE Registration Database may be corrupt. Delete the OLE Registration Database, located in Home/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2011. Word will regenerate this file the next time it is opened. (On Lion and later, the Library directory is hidden by default, but you can open it by holding down the option key and selecting it from the Go menu.)

After using Migration Assistant to move your applications and documents from an old computer to a new computer, upon attempting to use Zotero from within Word, you may see the following error:

“Zotero experienced an error updating your document. [Exception… ”'The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1728.) @[getDocument:application.m:100]' when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationApplication::getDocument]” nsresult: “0x8057001e (NS_ERROR_XPC_JS_THREW_STRING)” location: “JS frame :: chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/integration.js :: _callIntegration :: line 273” data: no]“

Migration Assistant transfers an incomplete copy of Office 2008 that lacks files required for Zotero to function properly. Delete the copy of Microsoft Office created by Migration Assistant and reinstall Office from the original discs, or copy it manually from your old computer to your new computer using a USB flash drive or network share.

A bug in Mac OS X 10.6 through 10.6.2 can cause Firefox or Zotero Standalone to crash when attempting to use any Zotero-related functionality from Word. To resolve this issue, follow these instructions to update Mac OS X to 10.6.8.

The Zotero Word for Windows plugin does not work out of the box under WINE, CrossOver Office, or other compatibility environments for Linux. We do not support running the Word for Windows plugin under Linux, and advise users to use LibreOffice/OpenOffice instead. If you absolutely must run Zotero in WINE, this forum thread has some helpful tips.

As of March 2016, the following steps should work getting Office 2010 run with Zotero Firefox.

1. Install Office 2010 and Firefox on Wine

2. Open Firefox, download and install the latest version of Zotero (the .xpi file) and restart Firefox

3. Still in Firefox, download and install the Zotero plugin for MS Word (the Zotero-WinWord-Plugin-x.x.x.xpi file). Restart your Firefox

4. Change directory to /home/%user%/.wine/drive_c/users/%user%/Application Data/Microsoft/Word/STARTUP/. Substitute “Zotero.dot” file with this file

5. Open Firefox and the Zotero plugin.

6. Open MS Word

Thanks to Sudarlin Laoddang for providing these instructions on his blog.

At the last step of LibreOffice Integration installation, you may see the message

“An error occurred installing Zotero OpenOffice.org/NeoOffice/LibreOffice Integration.”

If you experience this error during plugin installation:

• Check that OpenOffice/LibreOffice is up to date, as new Java releases sometimes introduce incompatibilities with LibreOffice/OpenOffice.
• Open the LibreOffice/OpenOffice options dialog by choosing Tools→Options (Windows/Linux) or LibreOffice→Preferences… (Mac). In the dialog, click LibreOffice→Advanced or OpenOffice→Java. Ensure that “Use a Java runtime environment” is checked, and that a JRE is selected in the list below. (It may take a few seconds to load.) If no JRE appears in the list, install Java.

Next, restart the installation process, by restarting Firefox or Zotero Standalone. In Firefox or Zotero Standalone select Add-ons the under the Tools menu. The page should display the Zotero LibreOffice Integration extension. Click the preferences button for this extension which will display the Zotero Preferences dialog. Click the Install Extension button.

When you are asked to locate your LibreOffice/OpenOffice installations, ensure that your LibreOffice/OpenOffice installation is listed. (You can add new LibreOffice/OpenOffice installations by clicking the “Add Directory…” button below.)

If installation continues to fail, repeat the same steps, but click the Manual Installation button. This will open a folder containing the integration component to be installed within LibreOffice/OpenOffice itself. Double-click this component to install it, or select Tools→Extension Manager within LibreOffice/OpenOffice, click the Add button, and navigate to the component. While this is unlikely to succeed, it will provide further information about the cause of the installation failure.

If you receive an error stating “Could not create java implementation loader” when attempting to perform a manual installation, follow the instructions below for the Windows, Mac, or Linux. If you receive an error stating “JNI exception occurred” on Linux, follow these instructions. For errors not listed below, post the error you receive during manual installation to the Zotero forums.

Zotero Standalone 4.0.11 and earlier and Zotero LibreOffice Integration 3.5.7 and earlier do not currently support Apache OpenOffice 4. If you are using Zotero for Firefox, ensure that Tools→Add-ons→Extensions shows Zotero LibreOffice Integration 3.5.8 or later. If it doesn't, download the latest version of Zotero LibreOffice Integration. If you are using Zotero Standalone, a future version will support Apache OpenOffice 4, but for now we encourage you to switch to LibreOffice, which has a larger developer community.

Zotero LibreOffice Integration 3.5.3 and earlier are not compatible with LibreOffice 4. Under these versions of Zotero LibreOffice Integration, clicking buttons will not elicit a response from the plugin. To fix this, Zotero for Firefox users should install the latest version of LibreOffice plugin, while Zotero Standalone users should install the latest version of Zotero Standalone. If these components are up to date and the plugin still does not function, follow these instructions.

In Zotero LibreOffice Integration, when attempting to add or edit a citation or bibliography, you may see the message

java.Lang.NullPointerException at org.zotero.integration.ooo.comp.Comm.getMessageResponse

or the message

[JavaScript Error: “_lastDataListener is undefined” … when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationApplication::getActiveDocument]

This error indicates that the version of the extension within Firefox or Zotero does not match the version of the extension within LibreOffice/OpenOffice, typically because installation failed. Try reinstalling the plugin. If the installation fails, or you continue to experience this error after reinstalling, see the above section on how to resolve an installation error.

Users with other word processor integration plugins (Word for Mac or Word for Windows) installed should also make sure that those plugins are the latest available versions.

When attempting to manually install Zotero LibreOffice Integration, you may see the message

Add extension(s): «DIRECTORY»/Zotero_LibreOffice_Integration.oxt does not exist

We believe this is caused by a corrupt LibreOffice profile directory. Move or delete the LibreOffice profile directory, then follow the instructions above to reinstall the Zotero LibreOffice extension. (This will revert any LibreOffice settings you have customized to their default state.)

Upon manual installation of the OpenOffice/LibreOffice component, you may see the message

“Could not create java implementation loader”

This error reflects a faulty Java installation within OpenOffice or LibreOffice. This issue affects not only Zotero, but any LibreOffice/OpenOffice extension that uses Java. Follow the steps below, testing whether manual installation succeeds after each.

• Check that LibreOffice/OpenOffice is up to date, as new Java releases sometimes introduce incompatibilities with LibreOffice/OpenOffice.
• Make sure that Java is installed and enabled in LibreOffice/OpenOffice. Choose Tools→Options→OpenOffice.org→Java. Ensure that “Use a Java runtime environment” is checked, and that a JRE appears in the list below. (It may take a few seconds to load.)
• Remove the Zotero LibreOffice Integration component from Tools→Extension Manager and uninstall and reinstall LibreOffice/OpenOffice.
• If you have recently upgraded from Java 6 to Java 7, you may need to follow these instructions to fix your Java installation. Oracle's Java installer does not completely remove older versions of Java, and this can confuse LibreOffice.

Upon manual installation of the OpenOffice.org/NeoOffice/LibreOffice component, you may see the message

“Could not create java implementation loader”

This is usually caused by an outdated version of OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or NeoOffice that does not properly locate the system Java installation. It can be resolved by installing OpenOffice.org 3.3 or later, LibreOffice 3.3 or later, or NeoOffice 3.1.2 or later.

Issue: The out-of-the-box installations of JRE are not being recognized by LibreOffice 5.1 and therefore Zotero's Office plugin doesn't work.

Current Solution: Java Development Kit (JDK) is now needed for the plugin to work – this is different from the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) previously necessary.

• Download and install Java Development Kit (JDK) v. 8 JDK Make sure you only install JDK versions until 1.8_91 for now – anything later currently won't work. Link to JDK jdk-8u91

If you have a more recent version of JDK already installed you'll need to roll-back.

• In LibreOffice: Check in Prefs > Advanced if v 1.8.xx is actually selected in the box
• Go to LibreOffice Tools > Extension Manager, scroll down to “Zotero LibreOffice integration” and select; you should see an “enable“ button appear.
• After enabling, the plugin-in will be responsive to the the Buttons in LibreOffice's toolbar.

Tested on: Libre Office 5.2.0.4 / LO Integration Plugin 3.5.11 / Zotero 4.0.29.7 / JDK 1.8.0_77 / OSX 10.11.6

Upon manual installation of the LibreOffice extension, you may see the message

(com.sun.star.uno.RuntimeException) { { Message = JNI exception occurred”, Context = (com.sun.star.uno.XInterface) @7f01b00518b8 (ImplementationName = “com.sun.star.comp.stoc.JavaMachine”) } }

The most common cause of this error is a deselected Java installation due to a system update. To fix this, open Tools→Options, select LibreOffice→Java on the left, press the radio button to the left of your Java installation, and close LibreOffice. You should now be able to reinstall the LibreOffice extension from within Zotero.

On some Linux installations the Zotero toolbar refuses to install properly in LibreOffice, or is visible in LibreOffice, but clicking the buttons has no effect.

Installing the libreoffice-java-common package, available in the repositories of most common linux distributions, usually solves this issue.

You may still need to activate the extension: In LibreOffice go to Tools→Extension Manager Select “Zotero OpenOffice Integration” and click the “Activate” button.

This is due to a bug in the version of LibreOffice's KDE integration package that is bundled with some Kubuntu versions. Uninstalling libreoffice-kde, or upgrading to Kubuntu 12.04 or later, fixes this. See this thread for details and developments.

Hovering over citations in LibreOffice displays a tooltip that can make Compiz crash, especially if it is long. The problem was discussed here and here.

As a workaround, you can disable tooltips in LibreOffice via to Tools → Options → General. (This affects all tooltips, not just those from Zotero citations.)