Important note about citation formatting performance in Google Docs

Last updated: Jan 30, 2026

Some users are currently experiencing very slow citation formatting in Google Docs.

Paperpile formats citations in Google Docs using Google’s Apps Script platform. Google recently changed how these scripts are executed on their servers, which has caused a significant slowdown for some accounts. Our formatting code has not changed, and this behavior is the result of a bug on Google’s side, which we’ve reported and are tracking here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/479843184. In some cases, citation formatting may not finish in a reasonable amount of time.

What you can do

We have added an alternative way to format citations that avoids this issue:

If formatting takes too long, please use the new menu option shown above.

However, only some accounts are affected by this bug. If formatting works fine for you, there’s nothing you need to change.

The blue “Format” links in the yellow bars always use the old method, so they may still be slow. Use the menu instead.

The new formatter has been tested thoroughly, but should be considered beta. We recommend using it only if the standard formatting does not finish in reasonable time.

How to get help

If you notice any issues with citations formatted using the new method, please contact support@paperpile.com and describe the problem in as much detail as possible. Our team is actively working on this.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Paperpile’s Google Docs integration has been around since 2013, and millions of documents have been formatted successfully. We’re in contact with Google and actively working to bring citation formatting back to normal.