In Word 2007 and Word 2008, when using the editor to enter a new source, a dialog is presented to enter the three parts of an author's name: last, first, and middle. Word then converts those elements from their XML representation into a single string to display in the main source dialog. When saving the reference, the string is transformed back to the XML representation. Unfortunately, the transformations are not a 1:1 operation. Hence, in some cases, information gets moved to the wrong element. Two examples:1. Persons with only a last name consisting of multiple words are converted incorrectly
Last : The Artist Formerly Known as Prince
2. Persons with multiple first names are converted incorrectly
<b:Middle>Artist Formerly Known as</b:Middle>
Last : de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias
First : Juan Carlos
Middle: Alfonso Victor Maria
<b:Last>de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias</b:Last>
<b:Middle>Carlos Alfonso Victor Maria</b:Middle>
- If no commas are present, the fix assumes the format to be "Last" rather than "First Middle Last".
- The XML representation is transformed into "Last, First, Middle" rather than "Last, First Middle". An extra comma is placed between First and Middle allowing for a two-way transformation. People inputting the authors directly as a string should take this into account.
Who should apply this fix
Although the fix has no known side effects, only people who care about these bugs should use this fix. If you do not care about the bugs, it is never a good idea to tamper with your installation.
If the fix has side effects, you can download the original files to place them back.
Applying the fix
The fix consists of replacing two existing XSL files with the ones you can download from this page.
Applying the fix in Windows (Word 2007)
Extract the files to:
On most machines with Microsoft Word 2007 this will be:
%program files%\Microsoft Office\Office12\Bibliography\
Applying the fix in Mac OS X (Word 2008)
Extract the files to:
On most Macs with Microsoft Word 2008 this will be:
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Microsoft Word.app/Contents/Resources/
The bug still exists in Word 2010 Technical Preview so the patch applies there as well.