Share via

References turn to bold after reference 68

Anonymous
2021-08-02T14:18:53+00:00

Hello,

I have seen another post similar to mine, but no answers were provided. I have an issue with my reference list. After reference 68, all the references turned to bold. I checked the style, everything is in the same style "Bibliography". The funny thing is that, if I edit the style to bold, everything before 69 will turn bold and not anymore after.

Any idea on how to solve that? Thank you a lot!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
  1. Jay Freedman 207.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2021-08-03T23:00:57+00:00

    It appears to be a bug in the XML that defines the ISO 690 citation style. When one citation source doesn't contain any text, the style applies bold format to the entire paragraph instead of just the (missing) author name -- and then continues to do that to all the bibliography entries that follow, regardless of whether they contain valid author names. Although the bold formatting can be manually removed from the whole paragraph and then manually applied to just the author names, those changes will disappear if you update the bibliography field (F9).

    I demonstrated this for myself by editing the citation source of entry 69, adding a fake author name "SG" but otherwise leaving the source intact. Updating the bibliography field resulted in bold author names in entries 69 and 70. However, because entry 71 has no author name in its source, that entry and all the ones after it remained all bold. As far as I can tell, though, trying to use a space or a nonprinting character as the fake author name is not successful.

    Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge needed to correct the XML in the ISO690.XSL file.

    7 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

6 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-08-03T19:59:16+00:00

    In your sample document, if I click in one of the references (which selects the entire reference field) and press F9 to update them, the excess bolding is removed.

    0 comments
  2. Stefan Blom 338.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-08-03T17:31:13+00:00

    Thanks for the sample document. I have asked some fellow MVPs to have a look at the document. Someone may be able to figure it out. :-)

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2021-08-03T08:29:38+00:00

    Hi Stefan, thank you for your reply.

    Yes, Ctrl+Spacebar will remove the bold formatting but only for one word. And if I update the bibliography again, this word turns to bold again.

    The first bibliography line to turn bold is the 69, and no bold formatting is applied for it in the body of the document, neither for the following citations.

    I put you a link of the document here.

    There are no sensitive information, it is my public master thesis, I let it as it is.

    Thank you a lot!

    0 comments
  4. Stefan Blom 338.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2021-08-02T17:10:14+00:00

    Can you remove the bold formatting if you select an affected bibliography entry and press Ctrl+SpaceBar? If you then update the bibliography, does the entry remain "unbolded"?

    Also, is there any bold formatting applied to the citation in the body of the document?

    If you can't get it sorted, perhaps you can share a sample document with the forum? Make a copy of the original document from which you remove any sensitive content, leaving just enough of content so that the issue can be reproduced. Upload the document to OneDrive or Dropbox and post a "share" link here.

    0 comments