Yeah, it's weird...like I said, there is no reason for there to be a Chinese character in the document - none of my text or sources have any Chinese characters or anything.

I can't seem to find one single case of anyone else having this problem, so at this point I'm just chalking it up to unsolvable...

Thanks for the follow-up.

Since you have now started over, it's going to be difficult to figure out the underlying cause, of course.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Yeah, I know. But I couldn't wait on this (it's for a research paper), and it didn't appear like anyone was going to offer up any help...

I guessed it was something like that. Of course, when we're on a deadline, we have to make do with a quick workaround. :-)

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Alright, well you're in "luck"...this seems to be a permanent problem with my Office installation now. Except this time instead of a Chinese character, my citation is just blank:

() instead of (1)

The next citation will take on the value instead (e.g., citation #2 in the paper shows up as (1))

I have tried doing a complete repair of the software without success...anything else I can look for?

Is the problem still with one particular document? In that case, try copying its content, minus the final paragraph mark, into a new document.

To show/hide paragraph marks (¶) as well as other nonprinting marks, click the ¶ button on the Home tab.

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Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

No, the problem exists across multiple documents (the copy/paste technique was the first thing I tried). :-(