Hello,
I have a database with a mix of references to both journals and patents. I’d like to have the field “patent number” displayed - this will be empty for journals but that is fine by me. How can i do that? The field “patent number” is not present in the menu Preferences/Display Field.
many thanks
Thomas
I assume you are using the Patent number reference type to add your information for those records in the library. If this is the case, I believe the patent number is housed in the generic ISBN/ISSN field while the Patent Version Number is in the Volume field.
Where do you want the Patent number displayed? If in the citation, the inserted field will need to be represented by the generic field number, but that will create a problem in that Journals and other ref types will also contain information in that field. If this is the case, you will want to edit>preferences> reference types>modify to utilize Custom 8 (a rarely used field) - and make that the " Patent number" field and change the ISBN/ISSN field to “old Patent Number”. If you have Patent numbers in your records, then select all your patent ref types in your library (search on ref type field) - and with only those records showing in your library, use the Change/move tool to move the “old patent number” to the new “patent number” field.
If in the “bibliography” section, that isn’t a problem, as you just add and edit that specific reference type in the bibliography template section of your selected output style. Right now it is likely( depending on your chosen output style), that the Patent ref type is not defined in the output style, and is using the “generic” template.
Add the patent ref type to the bibliography template and copy the generic or journal template to this new template section. Here you should see the appropriate field names specific to the ref type and you should edit it carefully to remove what you don’t want and add what you do. Also when you go to insert them from the drop-down they should be appropriately named for that ref type. But remember to isolate any additional words or punctuation specific to inclusion with that field, by the | separate character and use the “link adjacent” for any spaces not IN the field name itself.
|, Patent Patent Number|.