Help:VisualEditor/User guide/Citations-Full

The toolbar
center|1200px|alt= Screenshot of the VisualEditor toolbar

Adding a new reference
Clicking on the Cite menu opens a dialog box with three tabs: Automatic, Manual, and Re-use

Automatic
In the automatic field you can enter a variety of input. Most people input a URL (website address) but you can also enter a unique identifier like an ISBN for books, DOI (Digital Object Identifier), PubMed ID, PMCID (including the PMC prefix), or QID (from Wikidata). You can also enter a plain text fully formatted citation or title of the work. It helps to be as specific as possible, as we return only the first result from both Worldcat (which mostly contains books) and Crossref (which mostly contains academic papers) in a random order. border|300px|center

Manual


There are two types of footnotes that can be added from the Manual tab - using a standard template, or using the basic template.

Using standard cite templates
{| cellpadding="20" To add more parameters, scroll down in the template mini-editor and click on the "" option.
 * VisualEditor - Editing References - Cite Pulldown.png
 * Your local wiki may have added extra citation templates to this menu. This offers quick access to the most-used citation templates. (Instructions for adding extra citation templates to your local wiki are available at VisualEditor/Citation tool.)
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references - Cite book required fields.png
 * Clicking on a template icon such as "Cite book" will take you into the template mini-editor for that template. Important information fields may be marked with an asterisk. While the most common fields will be shown, not all of them are required.
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references - Add parameter.png
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references - Add parameter.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references - Add parameter.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references - Add parameter.png

Click on "" when you're done.

Using the "Basic" citation
Shown here is what you will see if you select the "" item. In the Reference editor, you can add your citation, including formatting.
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png

You can make the reference belong to a given group, although normally this is left blank. (This option is used to display groups of references with the "" tool.) Then, look for the template you want to use, add it and edit it as you would any other template. (See the Editing templates section, below, if you need more information about templates.)
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 * In the Reference dialog, if you want to include a template in your new reference, click the  icon (puzzle piece) in the "" toolbar menu within the Reference editor.
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references 9.png
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 * VisualEditor - Editing references 9.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references 9.png
 * VisualEditor - Editing references 9.png

After you're done editing your new template, click on "" to return to the Reference editor, and "" again to return to the page you're editing. If there isn't already a list of references on the page (for example, if you're adding the first reference for the page), you need to specify where the list of references, and their text, will be displayed to the reader.
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Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page), open the "<tvar|insert></>" menu and click the "<tvar|reflistip></>" icon (three books). If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you can specify the group in this dialog. Only the references that belong to that group will be displayed here.
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The final step in the References list dialog is to click "<tvar|diaginsert></>".


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Adding a citation outside of a footnote
How to create a ==Further reading== list using Insert > Template > Cite book (etc.)