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Settings

Changes to settings take effect immediately; there is nothing to confirm. The Help button at the bottom of each page opens the matching section of this page. Settings… is in the application menu on macOS and in the File menu on other systems.

General

  • Appearance and Language: the color scheme (light, dark, follow system), the accent color, motion effects, the interface font, the interface language, and what the reference pane header shows along with its style and language.
  • Startup: whether the library window opens when the app starts: same as last time (the default), always, or never. With Never, the window's position and size are still remembered, so opening it by hand puts it back where it was. A library docked as a tab in the writing window is not affected; it is restored with the window layout.
  • File Handling: whether to attach associated PDFs and other files automatically when saving references; whether to retrieve metadata for PDFs and ebooks automatically; whether to take snapshots when creating references from web pages.
  • Find Full Text: which services are used to find open-access full text (OpenAlex, Europe PMC, Semantic Scholar and Unpaywall with its e-mail address) and the management of custom resolvers.
  • File Renaming: automatic renaming of attachment files and its template; see File Renaming.
  • Attachment Titles: show attachment file names instead of titles in the reference list; see Attachment title and file name.
  • Locate: the resolver and the lookup engines used by the Locate menu for finding a reference online.
  • Miscellaneous: whether to tag references automatically with keywords and subject headings; how many days after which items in the trash are deleted automatically.

Writing

CiteDesk's own settings: how the editor displays text, the folder in which new related documents are created, whether to show typeset citations in the live preview, line-start punctuation compression, and automatic pairing of brackets and Markdown marks.

The Display section affects only how text looks in the editor and the live preview. It does not change the document or the exported manuscript.

  • Text width: the width of the text area: Default (760 px), Wide (1000 px), Full width, or Custom (480 to 2400 px). When the window is narrower than the chosen width, the text area narrows with it and always keeps a margin on both sides.
  • Font size: the size of the body text. Use the slider to choose from 10 to 30 px; the default is 16 px. When it differs from the default, a Restore default button appears next to it.
  • Quick font size adjustment: when on, hold Ctrl and scroll in the editor, or pinch on the trackpad, to make the font size one pixel larger or smaller (on macOS only the pinch gesture works). Off by default.
  • Text font and Monospace font: the fonts for the body text and for code and property (frontmatter) source. Choose Fonts… opens the font list: it shows the fonts installed on this computer, search and click one to add it; chosen fonts can be dragged to change the order or removed. The first font in the list that is installed on this computer is used; with no font chosen the default font is used. Fonts that are not installed are marked. The monospace font also applies to other monospace text in the app. The interface font is on the General page.
  • Line spacing: the height of each line: Compact (1.5), Default (1.75), Relaxed (2) or Loose (2.25), as a multiple of the font size.
  • Paragraph spacing: the height of each blank line between two adjacent ordinary paragraphs: Compact (0.6 line), Default (1 line), Relaxed (1.5 lines) or Loose (2 lines). It applies only in live preview. Headings, lists, quotes, tables, formulas, code blocks, HTML blocks and horizontal rules keep their own spacing and are not affected, and neither are blank lines inside those blocks. The line height of headings and the space above them are fixed and do not change with Line spacing or Paragraph spacing.

The Behavior section:

  • New link format: how link text is written when internal links are generated (the [[ completion) and when links are updated after a rename: shortest path, path from the current file, or path from the workspace folder.
  • Use [[Wikilinks]]: the [[ completion writes [[name]] (default); when off it writes a standard Markdown link [text](path) instead. Links already written are not changed, and links updated after a rename keep their own syntax.
  • Default location for new attachments: where images and files pasted or dropped into a note (and the images in annotation excerpts from the reader) are saved: the workspace folder (the default), the folder of the current file, a subfolder of that folder, or a folder you specify. Paths start at the workspace folder and are created if they do not exist; with the last two choices a text field appears below, and Attachments is used when it is left empty. Files that are already saved are not moved.
  • Automatically update internal links: whether links that point to a file or folder you rename or move in the file list (and the relative links inside a moved document) are updated right away. When off, you are asked first and can choose Always update, Just once or Do not update. Only renames and moves made in CiteDesk update links; renaming outside CiteDesk does not. Code, formulas, comments, and citation and annotation marks are never rewritten. Documents that could not be updated are listed in a notice and need to be fixed by hand.

Account

Log in to or register a CiteDesk account. Logging in and registering happen in your system browser, and the desktop app never receives the password you enter on the login page. Logging in, logging out and switching accounts never change the library or documents on this computer. When you log out, the page says separately whether this computer is logged out, whether the server confirmed revoking the saved credentials, and whether the logout page was opened in the browser. Switch Accounts… logs in again and shows the account you actually ended up in.

Before your first login (or, if you only sync with your own storage and never log in, before sync credentials are first saved) you are asked once how this computer should store credentials; the choice covers the login credentials, the sync credentials and the sync encryption key. With the system keychain, the credential files cannot be used on another computer, a keychain permission prompt may appear, and after the app is updated you need to enter your computer login password once. With a file only you can read and write, no prompts appear, but if the credential files are copied or leaked, others can use them to log in to the account and read and write the synced data. With your own storage, the storage keys are exposed too. The credentials are kept in the app's profile folder and are not part of library backups or exports.

You can change this later under Credential Storage on This Computer on this page, and the saved credentials are moved along; if some of them cannot be moved, the original files stay and the page offers Retry. The last line of this page shows the current sync status; Sync Settings… there opens the Sync page.

Sync

Keep the library and workspaces in step across devices. The page opens with the status card and Sync Now and Pause, followed by three groups, This Device, Security and Storage and History, and a collapsible Advanced group at the bottom (transfer, disconnect, reset local sync credentials). For the details see Sync.

Export

Quick Copy: sets which format (a bibliographic style, or an export format) and which language the Copy Citation and Copy Bibliography commands produce. The output carries rich text and plain text together.

Cite

  • Style Manager: lists all built-in and imported styles. You can import a CSL style from a file, remove a style, restore the default styles, and open the style repository website to pick one. Built-in styles you removed can be brought back with Restore Default Styles.
  • Citation Dialog: the mode of the citation dialog (last used, library, or list).
  • Citation Options: whether to include URLs of paper articles in the bibliography.
  • Tools: Style Editor, to change a style and see the result right away; Style Preview, which shows the citations and bibliography each style produces for the selected references.

Which style and which language a document uses is not set here but in each document's document preferences.

Style Editor

Open it from the Tools group on the Cite page of Settings, or from Tools > Developer > Style Editor. Select a few references in the library first; the Style Editor formats them.

Choose a style at the top and its full CSL text appears in the editing area. A moment after you stop typing, the preview below updates, in three parts: Individual Citations, Single Citation and Bibliography. The toolbar lets you enter a locator, pick its type, tick Omit Author and choose a cite position (first, subsequent, ibid, ibid-with-locator, near-note; these are the values of position in CSL) to see how the style writes each case. These only affect the preview.

  • When a style does not match the CSL schema, the lines with problems are underlined; hover to see why. Validation is only a hint, and the preview still updates.
  • Save As… saves the editing area as a .csl file exactly as it is.
  • Install installs the editing area into the Style Manager exactly as it is: the same style ID updates that style, and the same ID as a built-in style replaces the built-in one. A style that does not match the CSL schema is installed as it is without asking; the lines with problems are already marked in the Style Editor.

The Style Editor only changes the characters you change yourself and never completes or fixes a style for you. The preview uses the same formatting engine as document formatting.

Proxies

The switches and the list for institutional proxies (URL-rewriting proxies such as EZproxy, and OpenAthens), used to reach journals through a school or institution's subscription. While browsing, the browser window transparently goes through a proxy according to this list. Detection of proxies, associated hosts and hosts never proxied are all on this page; see Browser Window and Adding from a URL.

Advanced

  • Miscellaneous: whether to check for updated translators and styles automatically (and Update Now), and whether to check for app updates and announcements automatically; see Updates, Announcements and Feedback.
  • Linked Attachment Base Directory: linked attachments under it are saved with relative paths; see Linked Attachment Base Directory.
  • Data Directory Location: where the data directory is; it can be changed to a custom location or reset to the default, see Data Directory and Backups.
  • Full-Text Cache: the maximum number of characters and pages to index per file.
  • Index Statistics: the progress of the full-text index and the number of indexed attachments.
  • Config Editor (at the bottom of the page): lists every setting, including those that have no control elsewhere (such as whether to check for retracted references), and lets you change or reset them. Do not change a setting unless you know what it does.