Citation

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Publius
Posts: 10
Joined: 2007-07-05 06:16:08

Citation

Post by Publius »

I am trying to write a legal citation macro that looks like this: United States v. [the name of the appellant], [volume number of the legal reporter] M.J. [the page number] (C.A.A.F. [the year the opinion was issued]).


Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
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phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Citation

Post by phspaelti »

Hello Publius.
I think we might need a bit more information to understand what you are trying to accomplish. The description that you are giving is of citations in your document that you are trying to find? When you find them, what do you want the macro to do with them?

Or maybe I am completely misunderstanding…
philip
Publius
Posts: 10
Joined: 2007-07-05 06:16:08

Re: Citation

Post by Publius »

Thanks so much for your interest in helping me.

I already have the citations. I just need to type it in an exact format. So when the macro runs it should
first toggle to italics, then print out "United States v. "
Then I want to be able to input the name of the case
Next, I want to toggle out of italics and have the macro print out ", " and allow me to input the volume number of the reporter in which the case is located.
Next, print out "M.J. "
Allow me to input the page number of the volume on which the case is found
And then print out "(C.A.A.F. "
Allow me to input the year the case was decided
And then print out ")"
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phspaelti
Posts: 1313
Joined: 2007-02-07 00:58:12
Location: Japan

Re: Citation

Post by phspaelti »

Hi again,
Nisus macros aren't really ideal for interactive use of the kind you are aiming for. For example there is really no need to work 'bit by bit', and in fact it's often just inconvenient, though you can write the macro that way if you prefer.

Here is a macro that will do what you want. It works by asking for the bits of information. Then it puts out the information all at once as one citation. It's embedded in a endless loop so you'll have to interrupt it from the Input dialog by clicking on "Stop Macro". I think the inner workings should be easy enough to understand, so you could adjust it to your needs as required.
Input Legal Citations.nwm
(6.83 KiB) Downloaded 938 times

Alternative methods in Nisus would be to use Glossary entries or Quick Fix to do this. Personally I would probably just type in the changing bits in the file then use a single Find/Replace statement to adjust the formatting and add the missing parts. But how that would work would depend on the exact format of the information, the number of citations entered at any given time, how often you need to do this, and other similar variables.
philip
Publius
Posts: 10
Joined: 2007-07-05 06:16:08

Re: Citation

Post by Publius »

Philip

Thanks so much. It works perfectly.
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