Easily switch between inline and footnote citation

streifenleopard
Hello,
is there a possibility to easily switch between inline and footnote citation? I would love to have this feature esp. as I do not see what the citation style provides.
I prefer to have inline citations but often I have to deliver sth with footnotes...
by the way: could it be that zotero automatically overwrites changes I have made to citation styles? I get the impression and it annoys me a bit.
  • adamsmith
    I'm not sure I quite understand the question - you can switch between citations styles that do inline and footnotes, sure. E.g. switch from APA to Chicago Manual (Full Note) and back just with any other style change (this requires that you insert the footnotes not via your word processor, but by adding a citation with the Zotero plugin.

    Zotero updates all styles from the style repository daily, yes. If you want to keep a modified version of the style, change its id
    http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step#change_the_style_title_and_id
  • streifenleopard
    Thank you for your reply.
    The way I use citations I make a clear distinction between a. the style as such (e.g. how to sort first name, last name etc.) and b. the fact whether quotes come inline or in footnotes.
    I would like to have this feature implemented as it is easier to work with inline citations even if you have to hand in the paper finally with footnotes.
    I had the styles changed manually to suit my needs without renaming them, automatically updating is a bit harsh, can I switch off this feature. I wouldn't like MS to automatically update my Normal.dot either.
  • mronkko2
    The way I use citations I make a clear distinction between a. the style as such (e.g. how to sort first name, last name etc.) and b. the fact whether quotes come inline or in footnotes.
    Zotero does not manage quotes, so I assume that you mean citations instead. Are you aware of any other citation management software that would support something like this?

    As adamsmith explained, the changing the citation style is the proper way to do this. In fact, forcing a footnote style to be printed inline would result in an invalid citation style and this would probably be confusing for many users.

    Personally, I always write my papers using the APA style (author-date, inline) and then switch to what ever citation style I need (e.g. footnote, numbered) right before submitting the paper. It takes three clicks to do this, and I cannot see how the number of clicks could be reduced even if this was implemented like you propose.
  • adamsmith
    I don't think you can currently turn-off auto updating of styles, no (it might get added - you can turn off auto-update for translators, which is an equally bad idea), but the comparison to Normal.dot is off - citation styles follow published guidelines. As opposed to a Word template they're not a matter of personal taste, but of right or wrong. If we correct something in a citation style, we want that to propagate to all users asap (the other major ref. managers using CSL styles do this as well).
    If you do want to change a style for personal taste, all you need to do is mark it as such by changing its id. This has been part of the instructions for a long time.

    What mronkko says about inline vs. note citations. For CSL the manner of citation - footnote, inline, numeric - is part of the citation style. Unless there's massive demand to change this (and there isn't) we won't.
  • dstillman
    edited August 5, 2013
    Style updating is part of the translator pref (which needs its text changed), but as adamsmith says, it's a very bad idea to turn that off, and there's no need to if you just want a custom style.
  • streifenleopard
    alright, alright, as I do not know a lot about computers I wasn't aware of the fact that you have to write the name of a newly created csl-file into the header as well. I thought saving it under a new name would suffice.
    I have used quite a lot of different citation styles in a lot of different documents so it's all very messed up - I see how I can sort this out.

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