Zotero reference italics inconsistent across templates

Libre Office 25.2.0.3, Zotero 7.0.13, Windows 10 64 bit.

Is there a way I can diagnose why the italics in Zotero citations dropped into Libre Writer via the Zotero plugin sometimes work, and not at other times?

I am reasonably certain it has something to do with template styles. A longer document (150 pages) I use with many more styles than normal fails to import italics correctly, even though I can see the the italics during the import process (several steps are visible) before they are removed. Using the Zotero plugin refresh button has no effect.

If I copy-paste from that document to a new one (so far they have all been shorter documents of fewer than 50 pages) with another template, and then use the Zotero plugin refresh button, the italics come back.

I can see nothing obvious about my footnote style that should override italic formatting, so I assume it is some other style, or the document length itself, that cause the problem. Assuming document length is a wild goose chase, that leaves me with page and paragraph styles. I have checked these and cannot see any obvious reason for overriding italics (which doesn’t happen when I do a normal copy paste of text into the body of a page, unless I specify unformatted text paste).

So, is there a way I can log Libre Writer to trap what occurs at Zotero reference import? I’ve had a quick look in the Windows user directory, and the Libre Writer config options, but I haven’t found an obvious way to turn on a verbose logging function.

All suggestions welcome.

if you just keep 1 page where the problem occurs (delete 149 others), does it refresh correctly?

Tried that by saving as a test document, deleting all but one page. No luck. Then I started removing styles from that one page, and turning all the ones I couldn’t delete into vanilla defaults. Nothing doing. The references never refreshed to reveal the italics. Then I tried changing referencing styles back and forward. Still no joy. There’s definitely something in that document turning the italics off.

then maybe upload a 1 page .odt here, if our style gurus want to have a deeper look …
(and another 1 page which works, to contrast)

OK. So two one pagers, one with italics not working, and one where they do.

For the record, the Zotero referencing style applied in the docs is Modern Humanities Research Association 4th ed, but Italics don’t work in Oxford University Press (note) or Chicago Manual of Style 17th ed (note, annotated bibliography) either.

2025-02-27-zotero-test-italics-not-working.odt (51.5 KB)
2025-02-27-zotero-test-italics-working.odt (50.8 KB)