Need

Citation marks are often not visually prominent enough. In many cases I need to change all citation fields to a specific color, usually blue. Editing them one by one is slow and inelegant, so I recorded this macro-based method for later reference.

Result

Workflow

1. In Word, open View -> Macros -> View Macros

2. Add a macro

Create macro

Paste macro code

The code is:

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Sub CitingColor()
    For i = 1 To ActiveDocument.Fields.Count ' Loop through all fields in the document
        ' Word cross-reference field codes start with " REF" (note the leading space)
        ' EndNote citation field codes start with " ADDIN EN.CITE"
        ' Zotero citation field codes start with " ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION"
        ' Add other field types here if needed
        If Left(ActiveDocument.Fields(i).Code, 4) = " REF" Or Left(ActiveDocument.Fields(i).Code, 14) = " ADDIN EN.CITE" Or Left(ActiveDocument.Fields(i).Code, 31) = " ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION" Then
        ActiveDocument.Fields(i).Select ' Select the matching field
        Selection.Font.Color = wdColorBlue ' Set the font color to blue; other colors such as RGB(255,0,0) can also be used
        End If
    Next
End Sub

3. Run the macro

Run the CitingColor macro. It will automatically change all matched citation fields in the document to blue.

Macro result

In my test, this worked for both author-date and numbered citation styles.

Reference