Problem with magic citations

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@mz2 Hi - thanks for your response. Yes i realise that the style choice in both apps is independent (and that in Papers it is set globally) but both products surely draw from the same source CSL files? As such I would expect that the output format for each chosen style would be the same in each app.

@mallow by and large, yes. Both apps use CSL to describe citation styles. If you choose the same style in both apps, the formatting should be similar indeed. We are interested to hear of any deviations to this.

Notably Manuscripts uses a different CSL based citation formatting engine than Papers though. Both engines have upsides and downsides (i.e. there may be corner cases where either deviates from the standard) – the one used in Manuscripts is basically the reference implementation that the CSL specification is based on though.

Hi - in Papers i get the exact formatting that i require for my institution by using the 'Harvard Manchester Business School' style. In Manuscripts the content and formatting are different (see below - non italicised publication name, no edition or publisher details and some random page number added):

Papers: Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2013). Research Methods in Education. 7 ed. Routledge.
Manuscripts: Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2013). Research Methods in Education. p.718

@mallow could you send us the document in question, please? The omission of a page number is actually an issue with Papers, but the rest of the differences are down to that reference not being detected in its correct reference type. Sending us the example document helps us a lot of in confirming this issue gone in an update where we adjust the reference type based formatting.

I have a physical copy of this book. In Papers i just searched for it and added it to my library. Papers has the details correct in terms of it being a book etc.

@mallow if Papers includes a page number in the reference, Manuscripts will present it for certain reference types. Manuscripts has not invented the page number itself. Question is whether showing it is according to the reference style. Sending us the example document helps us confirm the situation and to correct the publication type handling.

happy to send you whatever you need - most of my references though are for physical books that i own. Not documents that i can send. If there is a way to send you the publication details from papers then let me know.

i can see now where the page number is generated from. As you say, it's maybe a flaw in Papers that it is missing from their reference output.

Out of curiosity...why would you not use the same citation formatting engine as Papers? i know the 2 companies are totally separate but there are links between the 2 and the interaction with papers citations is one of the key selling points of manuscripts. Odd that they are not more aligned in this respect.

@mallow ah sorry for the confusion. By "document" I meant the .manuscript project. The Manuscript project itself contains bibliography data in structured form. It is responsible both for parsing the Magic Citations posted data, and for formatting it. What you are asking for is tweaks to how it is formatted (I'm pretty sure the issue is not with the parsing stage).

Out of curiosity...why would you not use the same citation formatting engine as Papers? i know the 2 companies are totally separate but there are links between the 2 and the interaction with papers citations is one of the key selling points of manuscripts. Odd that they are not more aligned in this respect.

We are using the open source citeproc-js CSL formatting engine (https://bitbucket.org/fbennett/citeproc-js/wiki/Home), which is the canonical implementation of CSL formatting used by tools such as Zotero, Mendeley, etc. It is a great component and a good fit for Manuscripts for several technical reasons, portability being the main one (capability to localise its output is another upcoming reason – though really feature wise they are very equivalent). To be clear, the formatting differences are not due to citeproc-js or Papers, but Manuscripts itself (and the CSL implementation in Papers is not open source and available for 3rd parties like Manuscripts).