Citations without brackets

[raymond]

Hello,

A strange thing happened to me. with the last BE and last Mellel, and on 10.7.4
I am creating a citation in a Mellel very long file as shown in the following screen pictures:

Screen Shot 2012-08-08 at 16.16.11.png (13.19 KiB) Viewed 12109 times

I have created bibliography in a long Mellel document.
The outcome for the citations, (in violate) on the Mellel file are without brackets as can be seen in the attached screen picture:

Screen Shot 2012-08-08 at 13.07.35.png (13.14 KiB) Viewed 12114 times

When exporting to PDF the results are:

Screen Shot 2012-08-08 at 13.08.35.png (38.58 KiB) Viewed 12114 times

What can I do to bring back the brackets. Doing it manually it is too long on a document of 70 pages.
It is the first time I witnessed it

TIA

[ozean]

In the Formats Manager, you should check if your citation style actually includes brackets for the citation:

Screen Shot 2012-08-09 at 08.36.22.png (109.53 KiB) Viewed 12099 times

[raymond]

Thanks ozean. This was the problem.
I have changed nothing in the configurrations, and it was changed for a reason I am unaware of. Perhapes because I utilized, in the last group of citations the live bibliography in Mellel. If this is not the reason, i don't know why it happened, almost at the end of that long file.

Now, the situation is that all the document is with raw citations (it is unscanned). How can I bring back the brackets to almost 150 citation in the Mellel file?

And one more question: I want to change the configuration as showen below:

Screen Shot 2012-08-09 at 10.29.33.png (14.12 KiB) Viewed 12097 times

to the situation in your configuration, namely, "if > 3...."
But this possiblity of changing at will is inactive in my format manager, as you can see in the attached screen picture.

Once again, thanks

[ozean]

You should be able to bring all of them back by

1. changing the format so that "Enclose citations with ()" is activated
2. rescanning your document with the format you corrected above selected

That should be it!

And to answer your second question:

Could it be possible that you are using one of the other "Cite by" settings in the first tab "Built-in or Custom"? See screenshot:

Screen Shot 2012-08-09 at 09.39.31.png (95.6 KiB) Viewed 12097 times

If that is the case, then you need to make the change in the first tab. The options in the second tab are greyed out so that they are not in conflict with those in the first.

(I have to admit that this replication of options is slightly confusing. Perhaps this can be fixed somehow? Too bad I do not have a very good sense for GUI design, otherwise I might come up with a possible solution or work-around for Jon here… Or, perhaps it would be possible to completely disable the second tab for all but the custom setting and haul over all the settings that are needed into the first tab for Numbers and Author-Date. No idea if this would be better, but it would reduce the amount of tab switching for the non-custom settings…)

[raymond]

Thanks, once again. I'll try it with hope.

For your second proposal:
"If that is the case, then you need to make the change in the first tab. The options in the second tab are greyed out so that they are not in conflict with those in the first."

My cofigurations are simar to yours as seen here:

Screen Shot 2012-08-09 at 12.05.57.png (47.22 KiB) Viewed 12094 times

But, I find no way how to change anything here.

Looking forward to your explanations.

[ozean]

Ah, now I see what you mean: the number of authors cannot be changed in that format. I did not notice this the first time I answered your question. (I haven’t had the time to play with the new setup yet, so I am still unfamiliar with it.) I guess this would be a feature request to Jon then!

[raymond]

I am afraid that a feature request from your side to Jon would be better welcomed.

[Jon]

Ah, now I see what you mean: the number of authors cannot be changed in that format. I did not notice this the first time I answered your question. (I haven’t had the time to play with the new setup yet, so I am still unfamiliar with it.) I guess this would be a feature request to Jon then!

No, ozean, there is no feature request here. Number and Author-Date formats are meant for convenience, and many features are hardwired. That's why we call these formats "built-in". The vast majority of author-date citations output "et al." (or something else) after 2 authors. If you want something not offered by the built-in formats you must use a custom format, which is far more flexible, but of course more complicated to set up. BTW, this is how formatting options have worked for may years.

Jon
Sonny Software

[ozean]

I can see the logic in that, so that’s fine with me.

What do you think about moving the few options from "Common Settings" that are actually relevant for the Numbers and Author-Date formats to the first tab, so that the second tab will be completely deactivated (either greyed out or non-existant – no idea what would be a more standard OS X way of doing this) for these kinds of formats? I am only asking this because (for example in Author-Date), some of the options that reside in the "Common Settings" tab are already replicated in the first tab. Just a thought though…

[Jon]

Actually, I'm reorganizing that now, moving features that only apply to custom formats to the custom formats tab. Common features will hold options that are common to 2 or 3 of the format types. (BTW, there is no replication the the Author-Date tab in the current layout -- features that don't apply to author-date are disabled).


Jon
Sonny Software

[ozean]

Wonderful!

[raymond]

Ozean, once again thanks for your valuable assistance to me.
Raymond