Inserting References

Quick and easy insertion of references in multiple formats is one of the biggest advantages of using RefKeep. Consider the the following scenario. You are busy writing a research paper. You want to insert a reference for some idea you remember having seen a few days. A quick RefKeep search brings that record on your screen. Now you want to insert a reference to this record in a specific format, say IEEE format. You don't have to painfully type out the information yourself. All you have to do is press the following button:

The Insert Reference Dialog box which pops up allows you to choose a format and also gives a preview of the formatted record. Clicking on the INSERT REFERENCE copies the formatted record to your system's clip board, from which you can easily paste the reference information into the paper you are writing (say latex or Microsoft Word document). An example Insert Reference Dialog box is shown below:

Creating Custom Formats

RefKeep comes built in with common formats like plain text and HTML. It is very easy to add to custom formats to RefKeep. Click on the NEW button on the Insert Reference Dialog Box. The custom format is defined through the dialog box that pops up. You must enter a name for the format (for example: IEEE v15) as well as a brief description. You must also specify the record types for which this particular format is applicable. This is because all formats need not be applicable to all types of records - for instance, the formatting to be used for a Book record is completely different from that of a WWWLink record.

The most important field in defining a new format is the FORMAT STRING field. This is how you actually specify the format. For example, you want to format a Book in the following manner:

"Title_of_the_Book" :- List_of_Authors; pub. by Publisher_Name.

The format string for this will be:

"<title>" :- <authors>; pub. by <publisher>.

The tags of the form <tagname> are placeholders. The complete list of supported tags can be found in RefFormat.txt located in the config directory or at the RefKeep website. All text and punctuation other than the RefKeep tags will appear verbatim in the formatted output. Only the tags will be replaced with appropriate data from the particular record.