How do I use the Mendeley Desktop citation plugin?

Once the plugin has been installed, you can open up your word processor. The tool will appear in a different location depending on the software you're using.The citation plugin is automatically installed when you download Mendeley Desktop if you have a supported version of work of LibreOffice installed.

In Libre Office it will appear as a toolbar across the top of the screen. If you can't see the toolbar, or if you remove it by accident, you can restore it via the 'View' menu and selecting the 'Mendeley' option from the 'Toolbars' list.

In Microsoft Word for Mac, the tool will appear as as a ribbon under Add-ins or under References, it depends on the version of MSWord.

In Microsoft Word for Windows, the tool can also be accessed via the References tab on the Ribbon. You should see a new set of tools for the Mendeley Cite-o-Matic.

The toolbar is comprised of a number of buttons and menus (please note: the specific order varies between word processors):

• Insert Citation (or Insert/Edit Citation) - Inserts a citation on the location of the cursor.

  • Use the Citation tool to search your Mendeley library for a specific reference.
  • When the cursor is positioned within an existing Mendeley Citation, you can edit that citation.
  • The current Citation Style controls the format of the citation. See 'Citation Styles' below for more details.
• Undo Edit - Reverts any changes made to Mendeley citations.
• Merge Citations - Combines two adjacent highlighted citations into a single, properly formatted citation.
• Insert Bibliography- Creates a bibliography of all the Mendeley citations inserted into the current document.

  • The bibliography will be inserted at the cursor's current location.
  • The current Citation Style controls the format of the bibliography. See 'Citation Styles' below for more details.
• Refresh - Updates all the Mendeley citations and bibliography to use the most current details for each reference.

  • If you correct an Author Name in Mendeley Desktop, for example, you will need to press Refresh for that change to be updated in any citations added to the current document.
  • Note that inserting another citation, or bibliography, as well as updating the current Citation Style will also cause the document to refresh.
• Citation Styles - Lists the most popular styles Citation Styles available.

  • Click 'More Styles' to see the full styles menu in Mendeley Desktop. This allows you to download additional citation styles from a repository of over 7,000 community-generated styles.
• Export -Saves a separate copy of your document.

  • This can be used to carry across Mendeley citations into a format compatible with another word processor (e.g. from Microsoft Word to LibreOffice, or vice versa).
  • It can also be used to save a copy without Mendeley Fields. This process is sometimes known as 'flattening'.