Reviewed by John G. Norman
Department of English
The Ohio State University

Citation 7.1 (C7) is a bibliographical database program for Microsoft Windows that works in standalone fashion or directly with a word processor (MS Word 6.0a to 8/97, Corel WordPerfect for Windows, 6.0a to 8). In effect, C7's general design philosophy provides for a writing environment where one may manipulate note cards and bibliographical references with considerable functionality that challenges the market leaders, ProCite and EndNote Plus. The user may annotate her WordPerfect or MS Word document with in-text citations containing C7 "Access Keys" which are later read directly by the program, generating bibliographies in a wide variety of styles. When using WordPerfect or MS Word, it is not necessary to save the file on disk before formatting; C7 manipulates the word processor directly. C7 also does a good job formatting references into footnote and endnote forms.

The printed documentation is divided into three sections: a primer with illustrative examples, a reference list of topics in alphabetical order, and appendices that describe conversion procedures from EndNote, ProCite, and Notebook II. The on-line documentation repeats most of this information. Four useful sample datafiles are supplied for use with the primer.

Data-entry provides the usual features one expects in a Windows program that manipulates text: cut and paste, word-wrap, use of HOME and END keys, etc. An unusual feature of C7 is that the database itself (called a datafile in C7 parlance) is stored as a regular text file. This has an impact on data entry: italic text is displayed not as italics, but as text surrounded by the flag "\i" (similar flags are inserted for bolding, underlining, superscripting, and subscripting). While this looks ugly, it is offset by the plus of having a datafile that is easily emailed, edited, and spell-checked by your favorite word processor. A nice feature is that diacritics may be entered without resorting to the badly-designed Windows character map accessory: to specify an "é," for instance, one simply types CTRL-' followed by e. For more complicated text with diacritics, one can pop up a simplified character map dialogue with the Edit / Insert Special / Windows Ext. Char menu item.

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System Requirements:
PC, Windows 3.1 or later.

Version:
Latest: 7.1
Reviewed: 7.1

Availability:
Commercial software available at retailers and from the publisher. Directly from Oberon: $149 (non-student, non-faculty), $125 (students and faculty). Via the web: $99. Upgrades: $49 to $69.

Demo:
The demo for Windows is available via the demo page.

Screen Capture:
(Click for larger image)

View 1: Record View with "Preview Box"

View 2: Generate-Citations Dialog Box