Problem
You want the formatting of your citations and bibliography to look a certain way and for that reason want to create your own style. (Please note: we create official styles of a periodical or publisher for you.)
Solution
Citavi includes a robust Citation Style Editor which makes it possible to implement almost any citation rules you might encounter. As a result, the Editor is a very complex tool and requires a great deal of time to master. It's often more efficient to first try an alternate approach:
- Ask if your library or faculty can provide a Citavi style.
If you need a citation style that follows the guidelines of a university chair, an institute or a faculty, it is only of local relevance and cannot therefore be created by us for free. However, if the faculty or library creates a fitting citation style for Citavi, we will be happy to upload the style upon request into our central repository. Please contact the Citavi-Support for further information. - Search for a matching or similar style.
There's a good chance that you'll be able to find a style in Citavi that is similar to yours. In Citavi 4 and later an advanced style finder is available, which helps you select styles according to certain criteria. Our manual shows you how to use this feature. - Don't make unnecessary changes.
If your department or course requires you to use a style that only differs in a few small details from the style you found, check with your professor or advisor to see if their guidelines are "only" a recommendation and if it might be possible to use a different citation style. Such citation rules are usually created to give students some guidance so that sources are cited completely and in a consistent way. - Take the time to become familiar with the Citation Style Editor's main features.
Take a look at the manual chapter Creating Citation Styles. - Don't start from scratch; find a similar style and make changes to it.
You'll save a lot of time if you make changes to a pre-existing style. See how in our manual. - Check for solutions to typical style problems.
Chances are, if you're not sure how to recreate a style rule, someone else already has been, too. Search our collection of frequently asked questions (FAQ) and our Forum to find solutions for how to implement common citation style requirements. - Let us help!
If you have a license for Citavi, we're happy to help you with your individual questions. Write to us by creating a new ticket. Make sure to be as clear as possible about what goal you want to achieve and please also send us a sample Word document with clear examples. For individual citation styles, our free help is limited to one question. If you need additional support beyond that, we're happy to help for an additional fee.