Importing abbreviation lists

Pre-packaged abbreviation lists can be downloaded from the CitationStylist site [1] for some styles. To import a set of lists for a style, save the JSON files containing the abbreviations to your desktop, and open a document to access the abbreviations popup. Use the Import button at the bottom of the panel to open an import dialog. Navigate to your desktop (or wherever you saved the files), and select an abbreviation list file to import it. Distributed abbreviations are divided into source files of two types: Abbreviations!pre-packaged lists

Abbreviations!name listsAbbreviations!phrase lists

Names

Abbreviations in files ending in -names.json are directly editable in documents via the user interface, and can be exported. The abbreviations in these lists are applied to target fields that match the field content exactly.

Phrases

These are abbreviations of individual words and phrases, which the plugin applies to field content when generating suggested abbreviation forms. This is convenient for styles such as the American Law Style that make intensive use of abbreviations in titles, case names, and institution names. The Phrases lists cannot be edited in the user interface of the plugin, and when a new list of this type is installed, it always overwrites the existing phrase lists entirely for the currently selected style. [2]

To allow updates while preserving your own work, three options are available to control import of lists of the former type: Abbreviations!importing

Fill gaps

This is the most “shy” method. Abbreviations will be added for the currently selected style only if they do not conflict with existing entries. Existing abbreviation settings will not be altered.

Override local entries

This will overwrite local entries where there is a conflict, but other abbreviations existing abbreviations will not be touched.

Replace local list

This is the most drastic method. All existing abbreviations for the currently selected style will be deleted before the imported list is installed.

Exporting abbreviation lists

The Export button in the abbreviations popup can be used to export the lists for the current style. This is useful if you wish to share your abbreviations with other users, or to move lists between your own computers. Only the Names lists will be exported. If you want to fine-tune a Phrases list, you will need to edit the file by hand. Abbreviations!exporting

Abbreviation categories

The Abbreviations Plugin is driven by a database that may contain many thousands of abbreviations. In the Abbreviations Plugin popup panel, only those actually used in the current document and style are shown. There is no interface for editing the full set of registered abbreviations at the present time. The effect of an abbreviation registered through the user interface depends on the category selected in the upper left-hand corner of the abbreviations popup. Special features of these categories are described below. Abbreviations!categories

Journals and Reporters

This category covers journal abbreviations of all kinds. For portability, it is a good idea to include periods in abbreviations that you register in this category: the style will eliminate them if they are not needed, and the same abbreviations can then be used with other styles that do require them.

Series Titles

There is a small possibility that the title of a book series might overlap with a journal title. Styles might apply different abbreviation conventions to the two, so series titles are managed separately in this category.

Titles

This category covers ordinary titles, and case names for legal judgments.

Entire Institutions

This and the Institution Parts category apply to names (such as Author) entered in single-field mode, and to the Publisher or Court fields. In these fields, institution parts can (and should be) listed in descending order, from the umbrella institution down to the smallest unit, separated with the vertical-bar field separator character, “|“. Through this abbreviation category, the entire institution name can be rewritten. This can be used to normalize inconsistent naming of an institution across cites in a document.

This Entire Institutions abbreviation category is used to set the keys for content-neutral citations to law cases. For example, if the Court field is set to single-field mode with content UK|High Court|Chancery, and the item is a neutral citation, [3] the key can be produced by setting an abbreviation in this category of UK|UKHC.

Institution Parts

Abbreviations registered in this category are applied to any name part, in any name, that matches. To limit the effect of an abbreviation is a single institution, use the Entire Institution category instead.

Item Nicknames

This category covers the rare case of an author’s own name in citations to interviews and correspondence. Styles may require suppression of the name or a placeholder such as “the author” in this case. Where required, the matching name can be suppressed by entering “{suppress}” in the abbreviations field.

Places

Abbreviations of locations, such as “N.Y.” for “New York” are covered by this category. The abbreviations registered here are applied to both publisher places and the places of events such as conferences and the like.

Number field (strings)

In MLZ, the numeric variables of the Citation Style Language [4] are rendered as numbers if possible. Occasionally, content may appear in a numeric field that cannot be handled as a number (such as “First volume of six” in the Volume field). In this case, the non-numeric field content will be shown under this category in the plugin, so that the form can be modified to suit the requirements of the current style.

Hereinafter

In note styles, back-references to works with very long titles or ambiguous short-form citation details can be awkward. If supported by the current style, more elegant descriptive names for use in back references can be registered under this abbreviation category. A properly implemented style should insert the “hereinafter cited as” (or whatever) note following the first reference, and use the new name when generating back-references.

Classic Works

This category is used for works that are referred to generically within a field, as when Blackstone’s Commentaries are cited (in OSCOLA) as “Bl Comm”. Works appear in this category only when the style supports this form of referencing, and the following is entered into the Extra field of the item: {:type:classic}. Items cited in this way will not be listed in the document bibliography. Classical works

Wrinkles and Nifty Tricks

Here is a loose list of things that might crop up or might be useful.

• Only sort-form field content shows up in the plugin lists. If the content of a given field doesn’t turn up in any of the abbreviation lists, the most likely cause is that the form="short" attribute is not set on it in the style. For some fields this is not yet valid in official CSL, but the attribute can be used on title and journal title fields, where it is most commonly required.

• When a list is imported, the listing does not update immediately. This is a glitch, but the imported entries will be applied if you close the abbreviations popup and the word processor plugin, and open a cite for editing again.

• Abbreviation lists can be prepared externally for import, by extending the entries in an exported list. The format is standard JSON, just follow the syntax in the file. Be careful of missing and stray comma delimiters, JSON parsers are very fussy about them.

• To output nothing for a particular value, enter {suppress} as the abbreviation.

• For very specialized style requirements, a variable occurring after a particular abbreviated field can be suppressed using the following syntax (assuming a field value of Amazing Washington):

   "Amazing Washington": "!publisher-place>>>Amazing WA"

  This would render Amazing WA instead of Amazing Washington, and suppress the publisher-place variable if it occurs later in the cite. This is unlikely to be needed outside of legal referencing, but you know, it’s there.