Chicago of Manual of Style template?

[rmansfield]

Does anyone have a Chicago Manual of Style template for Mellel?

[Amontillado]

IEEE style, included with Mellel, is said to be based on Chicago.

If you wanted to start with that, open a new document using the IEEE template. Go into Styles->Edit style sets. Highlight the diamond style, which is the local style set in the IEEE template, and click the little two-page icon below the list of styles. That's the copy button. Rename the copied style to Chicago, switch to it migrating by style name, and make any needed changes.

Some random musings.

Any time you copy a style the new copy starts out as a global style.

If you don't want your new Chicago style to be global, delete it after you switch to it. That sounds like sawing off the limb you're sitting on, but what happens is you delete the global copy. Your document already had a local copy of the style (because you were using it), so the style lives on in your document. You could save the document as a template, too. Templates have local style sets just like any other document.

This is what I really like about Mellel's styles. I can have a global style which I can fork off to a new variant. The new variant can be global, or I can have it local to just one document.

I can re-globalize style sets with some nice safety factors.

Let's say I have ten documents using a given global style set. If I make a change to the styles in one document, it affects all. I can switch to a local copy with copy-switch-delete and make style changes that don't disturb the world.

If I re-globalize a style set from a document, all the other documents that came from that style set when it was global will keep using their local style sets. After all, I may have made style changes to individual documents I don't want overridden. It's just a quick style swap, matching by name, to re-sync to the global version.

[Icelander]

Does anyone have a Chicago Manual of Style template for Mellel?

Yes. I have one.
It contains text, the Chicago Style document guidelines and general principles for formatting a paper and cite sources in this style.

[Icelander]

Hello Amontillado,

IEEE style, included with Mellel, is said to be based on Chicago.

Just curious. Where did you hear that?

I can't detect any similarities between IEEE and Chicago :–) The former is used in engineering, computer science, and information technology; the latter in the humanities. In IEEE, in-text citations are numbered in square brackets, and the reference list is organized numerically, not alphabetically – just to mention one difference. The only time authors using the IEEE style guide are advised to consult the Chicago Manual of Style is when they need grammar and word usage guidance for American English.

Let's not forget that style guides (like IEEE and Chicago) always include 2 different types of regulations (and these regulations are independent of each other):
1. How do I format the paper, i.e. how is the following supposed to look like: margins, headings, footnotes, the body text (indented or not indented, for example), etc.
2. How do I cite my sources
My advice: To cite sources should be taken care of entirely by a reference management app, such as Bookends. Why? Because it automates the whole process and makes the writing process much more enjoyable. Bookends is indeed a helluva reference manager, but I also understand those who hesitate to buy a license.


Bookends or not Bookends? In my opinion, it all boils down to: do you love books? Do you want to keep track of the books you have read? Do you want to exchange bibliographical data with friends and colleagues? If the answer is No, then just cite the sources manually. Good luck!

The original poster (Richard Mansfield) created a Turabian/Chicago template here five years ago, albeit a very rudimentary one, just a skeleton, actually. Perhaps he read my desperate appeal to the Mellel community to up-to-date old templates. My appeal from Feb 22, 2022 reads: "if Mellel aficionados still exist somewhere, why are those templates not kept up-to-date???"
viewtopic.php?p=20436&hilit=aficionados#p20436

Well, it has been more than a week since Richard was last seen here on the forum. Perhaps he is not so interested in the topic after all …
When I have to wait weeks or months for a feedback (as often happens here), I simply loose all interest in supporting this forum.

[rmansfield]

Icelander, I would be very interested in getting the CMS template from you. My email address is RMansfield@mac.com

Thanks.