Unable to Type after Citation (Add-in)

Papers created before Jan. 3, 2023

If you have added a citation to your paper and are having trouble typing after it, there is a very quick and easy fix.

First, though, a little background information. PERRLA places information such as citations, references, title page content, etc. into your paper by utilizing Word's "content controls". If you hover over or click on a citation, you will see a blue or gray box surrounding it. What you're seeing is the content control.

You can learn more about content controls at the link below.

https://perrla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033896333-How-PERRLA-interacts-with-Word-Content-Controls-Add-in-

So, back to the problem at hand. You've added a citation and now you're unable to type after it. This is happening because your cursor is stuck inside the content control that placed the citation in your paper. If you clicked the link above, it mentions what you need to do when this happens. 

For those who didn't click the link above, as mentioned earlier, this is quite easy: hit the right arrow key on your keyboard.

That's it! If your cursor gets stuck inside one of the content controls, just hit the right arrow key on your keyboard. This moves the cursor outside the content control, allowing you to continue typing. 

With that being said, you can avoid getting your cursor stuck inside one of the citation content controls altogether. When you reach a point where you need to add a citation, go ahead and type a space and the ending sentence punctuation. Click back inside that punctuation and use PERRLA's functions to add the citation. Click back outside the punctuation, and you will be able to type without a problem.

Papers created on & after Jan. 3, 2023

On Jan. 3, 2023, we released an update that changed how content controls were placed with citations. Click here to read our full article on the changes.

This change places parentheses outside a citation's content control box - making it easier to type beside a citation and avoiding the locked content control boxes.

However, if you need to add additional text inside your citations (such as "as quoted in"), you may still need to use your keyboard arrow keys to correctly place the cursor inside the parentheses and outside of the locked content control boxes.