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Create and manage citations

Last updated on Mar 14, 2024

Learn how to implement references by adding and applying citations to your content.

Citations are references to a book, journal, website, or other published items. Adding citations creates credibility for the content and an essential roadmap to your research. RoboHelp allows you to add citations to your project and apply them to your content. For some scenarios, like professional books or legal analysis, it’s mandatory to add citations. Following are some reasons to include citations in your content.

To credit the authors of the source of information you've used for your content.
To help readers to follow up on these sources of information.
To display well-researched content.
To make content more reliable and prevent plagiarism.

You can add these citations for books, websites, and journals. They’re added as a bibliography or references at the end of the PDF output. Adobe RoboHelp supports multiple Citation styles like Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago, Institute of Electricals and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and American Heart Association (AHA).

Learn more about these styles from Manage Projects.

Add a Citation to the project

To add a citation to the project, follow these steps:

In the Author toolbar, select Citations.
The Citations panel opens.
In the Citations panel, select and then select New Citation.
The Add Citation dialog box opens.

Fill in the fields in the Add Citation dialog box.

Book	Website	Journal
Source From the drop-down, select the source of the citation as Book.	Source From the drop-down, select the source of the citation as Website.	Source From the drop-down, select the source of the citation as Journal.
Search by* Select ISBN or DOI from the drop-down to search the book based on ISBN or DOI. Enter the ISBN or DOI in the field and click to populate the fields. DOI: Digital Object Identifier ISBN: Unique Numeric Book Identifier	Search by* Select DOI from the drop-down to search the website based on DOI. Enter the DOI in the field and click to populate the fields. DOI: Digital Object Identifier	Search by* Select DOI or PubMed ID from the drop-down to search the journal based on DOI or PubMed ID. Enter the DOI or PubMed ID in the field and click to populate the fields. DOI: Digital Object Identifier
Author Add the first and last name of the author of the citation. Select to add more names.	Author Add the first and last name of the author of the citation. Select to add more names.	Author Add the first and last name of the author of the citation. Select to add more names.
Title Add the title of the book.	Title Add the title of the web page.	Title Add the title of the article.
Editor Add the editor of the book.	Website Name Add the name of the website.	Journal Title Add the title of the work in which the article is found.
Edition Add the edition of the book.	URL Add the web link of the website.	Year Add the year in which the article is published.
City Add the city of the publication.	Accessed Date Add the date on which the content of the website is accessed.	Volume Add the volume of the work in the series.
Publisher Add the name of the publisher of the book.	Published Date Add the date on which the content of the website is published.	Number Add the number of the volume within the series.
Year Add the year in which the book is published.	Updated Date Add the date on which the content of the website is updated.	Pages Add the page number or page range in which the article is found.
Version Add the version of the book.	Unique ID Add a unique ID for the citation. A unique ID is an identifier for that citation in the project.	URL Add the web link to the journal.
Series Add the series of the book.		Unique ID Add a unique ID for the citation. A unique ID is an identifier for that citation in the project.
URL Add the web link to the book.
Unique ID Add a unique ID for the citation. A unique ID is an identifier for that citation in the project.

Note:

*For Search by using ISBN, DOI, and PubMed ID

The data displayed in the citation search (“Citation Content”) are provided by Third Party Online Services. Adobe does not endorse the accuracy, correctness, and availability of Citation Content. You need to ensure (i) compliance with terms and conditions governing the usage of Citation Content and (ii) accuracy and correctness of Citation Content.

Select Done.
A new citation is added to your project and is visible in the Citations panel.

Note:

Adding a Unique ID for the citation field is mandatory. You cannot change the unique ID once the citation is added.

Import citations to the project

RoboHelp allows you to import citations, so you don't need to repeatedly create the list. They should be in BibText format. To import a citation to the project, follow these steps:

Tip:

A .bib filename extension is a BibTeX Bibliographical Database file. It's a specially formatted text file that lists references about a particular source of information.

In the Author toolbar, click Citations.
The Citations panel opens.
In the Citations panel, select , and then select Import.
Browse a .bib file from your system and import it to the project.
Once the file is imported successfully, you can view the references in the citations panel.

Note:

Citations for books, websites, and journals only are imported. If the Bibtex file contains other types of citations, they will be ignored.

Edit a citation in the project

To edit the citation, follow these steps:

Hover over the name of the citation from the list of the citations. Select menu icon.
Select Edit.
The Edit Citation dialog box opens.
Make the required changes. Select Done.
The selected citation is edited.

Note:

You cannot change the unique ID once the citation is added.

Preview of citation in the project

To preview the citation in the project, follow these steps:

Hover over the name of the citation from the list. Select menu icon.
Select Preview.
You can preview the content and format of the citation in the preview box. It displays the citation in the format based on the selected citation style.
Click anywhere on the screen to close the preview box.

Insert a citation

There are two ways to insert a citation to the topic. It can be added through the standard toolbar or drag and drop method:

Standard toolbar

To open a topic:
In the Author toolbar, select Contents and open a topic of your choice from the Contents panel.
From the standard toolbar, choose Citation.

A list of citations appears. Select the required citation.
Alternatively, press Ctrl+5. You can filter citations by typing the first few alphabets in the search panel of the citation dialog box. Press the upward and downward arrow keys to navigate through the list of citations. Press Enter to insert a citation.
Click Done.
Select the Save All icon on the top-left of the standard toolbar.

Drag and Drop method

In the Author toolbar, select Citations.
Drag the citation from the author toolbar and drop it at the appropriate location in the topic.

To select multiple citations, double-click the citation text and choose the citations. Select Done to add them to the topic.
Click the Save All icon on the top-left of the standard toolbar.

Once you insert citations to the project topic, you can list them in PDF output. Create a citations page in the bookmap, and add it to the table of contents. To add a citation page to your Table of Contents, view Create and manage a table of contents.

To change the view and feel of the citation page, view Customize PDF templates.

Delete a citation

To delete a citation from the project, follow these steps:

Hover over the name of the citation from the list. Select menu icon.
To delete a citation from the project,
1. Select Delete.
  The confirmation dialog box opens.
2. If the citation isn't used in the project, the following dialog box will appear.
Select Yes for confirmation.

The selected citation is deleted from the project.

If the citation is used in the project, the following dialog box will appear.

Delete the citation and its references: It deletes the citation from the project and all its references present in the topic.
Delete only the citation: It only deletes the citation but leaves the references present in the topic.

Select Done.
The selected citation is deleted from the project.

To delete in-text citations from topic,

1. In the topic, place your cursor at the end of the citation.

2. Click the Delete key from the keyboard.
The in-text citation is deleted from that instance in the topic.

Manage citations

From the Author toolbar, filter and search for citations according to the sources to use in your topic.

Filter

To filter the citation source list, select filter icon adjacent to the search bar. Select the source options from the drop-down to filter the citation list. It allows both single and multiple selections.

All Sources: It shows a complete list of citations, including all the sources.

Book: It shows the list of citations sourced from books.

Website: It shows the list of citations sourced from websites.

Journal: It shows the list of citations sourced from journals.

Search

Search the citation for your content.

In the Author toolbar, click Citations.
The Citations panel opens.
Use the Search bar to search for the appropriate citation from a long list. You can search for the citation by using any field.

Styling of a citation

Apply formatting to the citation when added to the topic.

Select the styles icon from the right-side toolbar or select default.css and Edit.
It opens the STYLES panel that contains all the styling options.
In the Search panel, search for <cite>.
Apply formatting to the citation.

Add citations to PDF output

All the citations added to the topics are listed on the citations page, which is available at the end of the PDF output.

From Table of Contents, create a TOC for citations page.
From standard toolbar, select Insert Back Matter and add Citations Page.
Create a template for the citations page.
Create and design a page layout for the citations page.
From Settings of template, select the citation's layout and click Save.
Generate the PDF from Output presets.

View the list of citations at the end of the PDF output.

Get help faster and easier

New user?

Create and manage citations

Add a Citation to the project

Import citations to the project

Edit a citation in the project

Preview of citation in the project

Insert a citation

Standard toolbar

Drag and Drop method

Delete a citation

Manage citations

Filter

Search

Styling of a citation

Add citations to PDF output

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