# How should publishers link to CSL styles

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [April 9, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166 "2013-04-09T18:31:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/1 "2013-04-09T18:31:19Z")

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Hi everyone,  
I’m in touch with a rep from Taylor and Francis about getting a  
Journal/style list similar to what we got from Springer so that we can add  
their journals to repo (T&F started consolidating their styles about a year  
ago).  
I also suggested to them linking to CSL styles in their instructions to  
authors and she seemed open to that, but asked what to link to. Since every  
major CSL project runs its own version of how to install styles that seemed  
tricky. How should we go about that? What should I ask them to put in their  
author guides?

Sebastian–  
Sebastian Karcher  
Ph.D. Candidate  
Department of Political Science  
Northwestern University

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/2 "2013-04-09T18:37:40Z")

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Great questions!

Two things, which I’ve said before:

1. I still think it’d be great for authors to be able to do a  
one-click install from an author instruction page at a journal site.

2. that at some point, journals should just self-host the styles

Can we really not make both of these possible?

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**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/3 "2013-04-09T18:48:12Z")

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> On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Sebastian Karcher
> 
> > I also suggested to them linking to CSL styles in their instructions to  
> > authors and she seemed open to that, but asked what to link to. Since every  
> > major CSL project runs its own version of how to install styles that seemed  
> > tricky. How should we go about that? What should I ask them to put in their  
> > author guides?

Point to [Zotero Style Repository](http://www.zotero.org/styles) ? See also “What is the best way to  
point authors to a certain CSL style?” at  
[http://citationstyles.org/faq/](http://citationstyles.org/faq/) for more thoughts.

Rintze

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**Author:** ![Sebastian\_Karcher](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/sebastian_karcher/32/176_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Karcher](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sebastian_Karcher)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/4 "2013-04-09T18:47:33Z")

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I’m not sure about 2 - I see a lot of potential downsides to that, too, but  
I thought

1. was in general already possible - Zotero (and I believe Mendeley) will  
install CSLs server with the right mime-type - I believe text/x-csl for  
Zotero.  
Charles - what about Papers?

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**Author:** ![Charles\_Parnot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/57b2e6/32.png) [@Charles\_Parnot](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Charles_Parnot)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 7:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/5 "2013-04-09T19:35:45Z")

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For Papers, our approach is that the user should not have to download or install anything. The CSL repo is simply included in the app. We need to improve the way styles are updated, as it’s currently only done on new releases.

Users can just drag a CSL file into the app otherwise.

One issue with downloading of styles from a web site is that in the case of Safari, it changes the extension to .txt.

Charles

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**Author:** ![Dan\_Stillman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dan\_Stillman](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Dan_Stillman)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/6 "2013-04-09T20:18:19Z")

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We’ve supported application/vnd.citationstyles.style+xml for a while, so  
it’d be better to use that than text/x-csl.

FWIW, in theory the Zotero repo (which Zotero clients check in with  
daily) is set up to fetch, cache, and serve updated styles from other  
servers as long as the style has a valid rel=“link”. This is currently  
disabled, since I haven’t tested it, but we should be able to support  
this easily.

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**Author:** ![Frank\_Bennett](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/frank_bennett/32/198_2.png) [@Frank\_Bennett](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Frank_Bennett)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/7 "2013-04-09T22:22:18Z")

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Interesting development, Sebastian!

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**Author:** ![Carles\_Pina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dbc845/32.png) [@Carles\_Pina](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Carles_Pina)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/8 "2013-04-10T08:42:49Z")

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Hi,

In Mendeley: the publisher could host the style in any place and then  
have a link like:  
mendeley://csl://http://publisher.com/style/style1.csl

The browser will invoke Mendeley to handle this link, which one will  
download the style, install and select it.

We always push the publishers to add the styles to [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org)  
github repository (with more or less success).

Regards,

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**Author:** ![Robert\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@Robert\_Knight](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Robert_Knight)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 11:43am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/9 "2013-04-10T11:43:36Z")

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Hello,

I think I might be re-stating Frank’s suggestion here.

For mendeley:// links, we have an intermediate URL at  
[open.mendeley.com](http://open.mendeley.com) (eg.  
[http://open.mendeley.com/library/filter/mendeley-suggest](http://open.mendeley.com/library/filter/mendeley-suggest)) which  
forwards to mendeley:// or gives the user further steps if they do not  
have Mendeley installed.

We could provide a similar page on [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) which would  
handle the details of getting the style into the user’s app. A simple  
implementation would present a list of apps and clicking one would  
forward to that app (eg. via a mendeley:// link, or a direct CSL link  
for Zotero) or provide suitable instructions.

Regards,  
Rob.

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/10 "2013-04-10T13:36:51Z")

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Question: what’s involved in “getting the style into the user’s app”?

For sake of argument, why can’t we have a simple general solution like:

CSL styles go into a common directory; on linux, say ~/.cslstyles or some such.

Apps then simply watch that directory.

I’m not a developer, so probably missing some detail, but I think  
simple is better all around.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Robert\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@Robert\_Knight](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Robert_Knight)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/how-should-publishers-link-to-csl-styles/1166/11 "2013-04-10T13:47:46Z")

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> For sake of argument, why can’t we have a simple general solution like:  
> CSL styles go into a common directory; on linux, say ~/.cslstyles or some such.

That is not simple for the majority of users.

The most generic thing I can suggest is that you provide a link to a  
.csl file and serve it with the right mime type.  
Zotero (in Firefox at least) intercepts the download based on the mime  
types, native apps can register as handlers for the .csl extension  
and can provide drag-and-drop support. Mendeley is not currently  
registered as a handler for .csl files I believe but it should be a  
simple change to make.

Regards,  
Rob.