# Question about reference key

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/question-about-reference-key/244>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [October 3, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/question-about-reference-key/244 "2016-10-03T16:38:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fetag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e19adc/32.png) [@fetag](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/fetag)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/question-about-reference-key/244/1 "2016-10-03T16:38:58Z")

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Hi,

I am doing my Ph.D. thesis which comes from several individual papers, so I have to merge several bib files to get a new one, and some entries might be duplicated.

When I use JabRef to combine these bib files, some reference keys were changed, for example, “agrawal2007polynomially” will be changed to “agrawal2007” automatically.

What is the reason that JabRef changed the reference key and is there any way to disable this feature and keep the original reference key?

Thanks for your help.

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**Author:** ![matthiasgeiger](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/matthiasgeiger/32/7_2.png) [@matthiasgeiger](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/matthiasgeiger)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/question-about-reference-key/244/2 "2016-10-03T20:52:31Z")

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Hi Fetag!  
Just click “Options” -\> “Preferences” to open this dialog and select “Bibtex Key generator” in the list on the left side.  
Here you can disable this behavior:

 ![](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/jabref/original/1X/5d7f2d410c7e92d65ca62c12a4b564e7bdb310ff.png)  
(see options below the type specific key settings)

Regards,  
Matthias

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![fetag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e19adc/32.png) [@fetag](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/fetag)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/question-about-reference-key/244/3 "2016-10-04T21:57:34Z")

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> [@matthiasgeiger](#):
>
> Matthias

thank you so much for your help!