Hiding Fields in the Reference tab

I am trying to organise the reference tab so that it shows only certain fields (Author, Year, Title and Abstract).  I do not wish to delete the other fields as I may need them later.  Is this possible?

I thought I had worked it out by going:

Edit>Preferences>Reference Types>Modify Reference Types

There was an instruction for hiding reference types but not for hiding individual fields.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

If you don’t want them at all, you just edit the reference type so they don’t exist (delete the name in the field for that reference type). 

The problem is that I do want some of them and want to keep the data already in those fields but want to be able to hide them so that I do not have to keep scrolling up and down while I sort and code 40000 references.  Is it possible to hide fields that do have data in them (as opposed to just clicking the Hide Empty Fields button)?

nope  – but it won’t delete data already in the field, just not give you the opportunity to add that kind of data again, without restoring the reference type field name.  (and I think it will still show the field if it has info in it, even if you delete the field name, which it sounds like you might not want either…

You can export the current ref table and keep it in a safe place and restore it later and swap em out, but you can’t temporary hide them.  

Ok.  Thank you for your assistance.

You could view just those fields on the preview tab, by using “annotated” or creating an output style that contains only the fields you wish to view? 

This is what I think we’re going to have to go with but I don’t believe I am able to edit in the preview tab which means that I will still need to switch back and forth between the preview and reference tabs which would be fine is we weren’t expecting to have tens of thousands of results to sort through and add codes to.

Okay, not exactly sure of your workflow, but if your library display is on a big screen, and has your preferred fields displayed, you can move down from record to record and the focus remains the same field on the reference tab… You are just limited by the amount of information you can view, especially for abstract, obviously.  I just checked and unfortunately switching between preview and reference tab, loses the focus on that field when you move to a new record. – but not if you are on the reference tab when you move to the next record… If the field you are filling in, is empty in those records you care about, it can be a library display field you can sort on, so the empty fields are at the top. 

well, Just trying to figure out what could work for you…

Sorry again for digging post (and hi again helpful Leanne!). I wonder if this feature has been added to X8, I mean hiding fields instead of deleting it.

Helpful Leanne can’t be very hopeful on this one.  No change in X8