Citations Problem in Word

Question

I am running Office 365 on a PC (work desktop) and I am trying to remotely edit a Word document on my Mac, which also has Office 365 installed on it. I had citations made on the PC, but when I try to add a citation on my Mac, I get the following message:

"You do not have the bibliography style that is currently being used in this document. Completing this action will reformat the bibliography and citations to your default bibliography style. Do you want to continue?"

I am used IEEE on my PC, so I don't understand why Mac doesn't recognize this, seeing that this is also available on the Mac version.

Answer 1

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the info. I have the latest Microsoft Office on my Mac. Do I need to upgrade to High Sierra? I'm currently running El Capitan.

Answer 2

Hi Yoyo,

Have you referred to Jim's suggestion to update to the version 16.16? If the problem still persists, would you please provide more details to us?

Regards,

Tisky

Answer 3

This is a situation where it is important that both the Windows and Mac versions of Office are fully up to date.

On your Mac, go to the Word menu and choose About Word. You should have version 16.16

If you have any other version, install updates:

INSTALL UPDATES:

I think the first troubleshooting step to take is: Ensure your Mac and Office have the latest updates. Here’s how to install updates:

Make sure your Mac has a working internet connection, then:

1. Update Mac OS X. Open the App store and click on the Updates button. Install the updates.
2. After, in any Office application go to the Help menu and choose Check for Updates to launch the AutoUpdate app. Let AutoUpdate install updates and then restart your Mac.

If you use Antidote, Webex, Silverlight, EndNote, Zotero or other add-ins there is a potential for crashes unless you also update your add-ins to the latest update. Install updates for these programs if you have them.

On the PC, the version information is in different places and how to update instructions vary. Please ask how to get the latest update for Word for PC in a Word for Windows forum.

Answer 4

Hi Yoyo,

Based on our test, the IEEE citation works without problem on Word 2016 for Mac. So we may confirm some information from you to narrow down your situation.

1. Does this problem happens to all the documents?
2. Please check if there also have the same error message when you try creating a IEEE citation in Word for Mac, and then insert bibliography.
3. If you create a document which only contains the text and the citation in Windows, then open it in Mac, will the error message still persist?
4. Please share your Word for Mac version with us. You can check it in Word > About Microsoft Word.

Regards,

Tisky