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1

Hi all,

is there a possibility to copy entries in JabRef to cliboard with user-defined formatting?

I want to have a pastable string (similar to what “Copy preview” does), but formatted according to my requirements (i.e. similar to custom exports but only to copy to clipboard).

Regards,
Eduard

2

Hello,

when I understand you right, either the CitationStyles preview would be the right for you, where you can choose one of the many predefined ones, or you can modify the Preview style in JabRef, it uses the same mechanism as the custom exports.

You can also copy them to clipboard.
Have a look at Preferences -> Entry Preview

Regards
Christoph

3

Yes, perfect, that’s exactly what I was searching! I usually have “preview” disabled, so didn’t even now I could cycle to through different styles using F9.

Two related questions:

  1. Can I have multiple citation styles in the context menu’s “Copy…” menu? Or do I always have to change the preview style to the style I need?
  2. Can I easily add my own entry preview style? That is if I have customized a *.csl file, where would I put it for JabRef to load it? Can it go into my bibliography folder (which is synchronized)?
4
  1. You have to cycle. Is it really that common to switch between different styles between multiple copy operations? In my setting, I work for hours with the same style.
  2. The best would be that you make it available at https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles. If your style is too specific, put it in the root of the JAR file. Just open it with 7zip.

In case CSL is too complicated, JabRef offers its own language. See http://help.jabref.org/en/CustomExports for the full language reference. The content of that preview can also be copied.

5

Is it really that common to switch between different styles between multiple copy operations?

No, not really. It’s just that typical citation styles are quite compact and exclude much information while the default preview style is much more convenient and for example includes the full title and abstract. Now I certainly would not start switching between the preview style and my required citation style every time but instead I’d just keep the requred citation style active and would stop using the preview style altogether…

For me it’s fine but it’s not an ideal workflow and I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to offer all citation styles selected for “Entry preview” in the context menu? This would remove the need to cycle altogether!

The best would be that you make it available at GitHub - citation-style-language/styles: Official repository for Citation Style Language (CSL) citation styles.. If your style is too specific, put it in the root of the JAR file.

It’s not specific at all. The main problem here was to find the correct style as there is no preview functionality for available citation styles in the preferences dialog (or did I overlook something?)
Also a search functionality would be nice! (E.g. I was looking for “Optical Society of America” but should have looked for “The Optical Society”).
Along these lines even a link to Zotero Style Repository might be worth a thought (that’s where I found the name of my style in the end but unluckily it’s a third party service).

6

These are all good suggestions! Could you please open a new post in #features so that they don’t get lost. Thanks!

7

@Ede123 If you want to search a specific style and to have a preview, I recommend looking at the CSL Editor:

http://editor.citationstyles.org/about/
There you can search for styles (by name or example) and get a preview.

Regards
Christoph