Live now, free
Create your own citation style
Your department wants Harvard, but with the year in brackets and the access date spelled out? Instead of hand-editing every reference, build the style once in CitApp. Two small templates decide exactly how your in-text citations and reference list entries look.
How it works
- 1Open the style builder and give your style a name.
- 2Write the in-text template with placeholders, for example ({author}, {year}).
- 3Write the reference list template, for example {authors} ({year}). {title}. {publisher}. {url} accessed {accessed}.
- 4Watch the live preview update as you type, then save. New projects can pick your style like any built-in one.
What the builder gives you
Twelve placeholders
Author, full author list, year, date, title, publisher, journal, volume, issue, pages, URL and the access date. Combine them with any punctuation you want.
Sensible author handling
One author renders as a surname. Several authors become the first surname plus et al. in text, and a full name list in the reference. Organisations stay untouched.
No AI guessing
Your template is rendered exactly as written, every time. What you see in the preview is what lands in your document.
Works everywhere in CitApp
The style shows up on every source card, in the generated reference list, and soon in the Google Docs add-on.
Common questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Creating and using custom styles is free right now. That may become a Pro feature at some point, but styles you have created will keep working.
My university uses a local variant of Harvard. Can I match it?
That is the main reason the builder exists. Copy an example reference from your course guide and rebuild it with placeholders. The live preview lets you compare against the guide as you go.
What are the placeholders?
{author}, {authors}, {year}, {date}, {title}, {url}, {publisher}, {journal}, {volume}, {issue}, {pages} and {accessed}. Anything outside curly braces is printed exactly as you typed it.
Can I use my style in a shared project?
Yes. Members of a project that uses your style see citations rendered with it, exactly like you do.
What about footnote styles with volume and pages?
The {volume}, {issue} and {pages} placeholders cover journal locators, and {accessed} covers access dates, so Oxford-like footnote formats work fine.
More from CitApp
Build your style in five minutes
Create a free account, open the style builder and match your course guide once. Every citation after that formats itself.
Open the style builder