Custom Format for Citations (Alt Cite)

Ibidem offers two ways to format and insert citations other than those automatically generated by Ibidem according to the particular citation style of your document. You can either (1) cite only one particular field of a bibliographic record (e.g., date, author, or title) or (2) create an alternate citation for a particular record that differs from the format Ibidem would otherwise generate automatically. The Alt Cite feature of Ibidem allows you to create a customized citation style for both in-text and reference list citations. There are a number of situations in which this feature can be extremely useful:

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Citing works using commonly accepted abbreviations for a particular style. For example, the SBL style allows abbreviated titles for standard works. If you want to cite Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts using the SBL style, you can create an alternate citation format that uses the abbreviated title (ANET) for in-text citations and the full title for the reference list.

•	Author names with alternate shortened forms. For example, if you want to cite Muhammad al-Bukhari as Bukhari (instead of al-Bukhari), you can create an alternate citation that uses this shortened author name.

•	Citing non-standard works such as archival sources, which may have fields or data unique to that particular work or archive.

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Using different citation styles for different types of works in the same document. For example, if you want to use different citation styles for primary and secondary sources, you can set the citation style of your document to the style you want for secondary sources, then use an alternate citation style when you cite primary sources.

This alternate citation style is entered as a unique field in an Ibidem record and can be used as the default citation for a given reference. For each record in your Ibidem database, you can add up to 26 unique alt cite fields identified by the names of different styles. Alternate citations are identified by field names according to the name of the in-text and reference list style currently active in the Preview Pane.

3	The Alternate Citation Format dialog will appear with the citation displayed in the format selected for the preview pane. You can now edit this as follows:

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In the first section of the dialog, type the citation as you want it to appear in the text the first time you use it. Type "##" (without quotation marks) to indicate where the page number should be placed. If you want the page number to be preceded by "p." or "pp." (e.g., p. 39 or pp. 39-49), type "<<p/pp>>" (without quotation marks) in the appropriate location.

•	In the second section of the dialog, type the shortened form of the citation as you want it to appear in the text for subsequent occurrences.

•	In the third section of the dialog, type the full citation as you would like it to appear in the reference list (bibliography).

The alt cite field is given the name of the active preview style for in-text and reference list formats. In addition to the ## and <<p/pp>> codes within the citation, the alt cite field contains one more special code, the vertical pipe ("|") that separates the three citation types (first in-text; subsequent in-text; reference list). The part before the first | corresponds to the first in-text citation format. The part between the first and the second | corresponds to subsequent in-text citations. The final part after the second | corresponds to the reference list format.

4	From the dropdown list, select the field that you want to cite. Only those fields in which data has been entered in the corresponding Ibidem record will be displayed in the dropdown list.

5	If you would like text to appear either before or after the field you are citing, enter that text in the BEFORE or AFTER boxes in the Insert/Edit Citation dialog.

It is possible to edit the alt cite field directly as you would any other field, but because this field uses special codes (see above), it is best to edit the field using the Alternate Citation Format dialog.

1	Place the cursor inside the alt cite field that you want to edit. Click the pencil icon next to the alt cite field name. The Alternate Citation Format dialog will appear.

1	From Ibidem, start by inserting the citation as though it were a regular Ibidem citation (press Ctrl+Insert, go to Cite, Insert Citation, click the Insert Citation icon, or double click on the record in the Database Pane). The Insert/Edit Citation dialog will appear.

2	Click to check the box next to "Cite Contents of Specific Field Instead (Do Not Build Auto-Generated Citation)."

If you would like to use the alternate citation next time you cite a work, click to check the box next to "As Default." If the next work you cite does not have an alt cite field, you can generate the full citation automatically or choose to cite a different field. Checking the "As Default" box effectively means that citations without an alt cite field will be formatted according to the reference style of your file, but works for which you have created an alt cite field will be formatted according to your customizations.