Advanced Usage

Interactive Disambiguation

When OneCite finds multiple potential matches for a reference, it can enter interactive mode to let you choose the correct one.

Enabling Interactive Mode

onecite process ambiguous.txt --interactive

Example Session

Processing ambiguous.txt...

Found 2 matches for "Deep learning Hinton":

1. Deep Learning
   Authors: Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton
   Journal: Nature
   Year: 2015
   Volume: 521, Pages: 436-444
   DOI: 10.1038/nature14539

2. Deep Belief Networks
   Authors: Geoffrey E. Hinton, Simon Osindero, Yee-Whye Teh
   Journal: Neural Computation
   Year: 2006
   Volume: 18, Pages: 1527-1554
   DOI: 10.1162/neco.2006.18.7.1527

Please select (1-2, 0=skip): 1
Selected: Deep Learning (10.1038/nature14539)

Batch Processing Multiple Files

Process multiple files sequentially:

for file in *.txt; do
    onecite process "$file" -o "${file%.txt}.bib"
done

Working with Different Data Sources

OneCite queries multiple data sources (CrossRef, PubMed, arXiv, Semantic Scholar, Google Books, and others) and selects the best match. All sources are tried for every reference — you do not need to configure routing manually:

onecite process references.txt

Custom Templates

OneCite uses YAML-based templates for output formatting. See Custom Templates for detailed information.

Working with Large Reference Lists

For large files (100+ entries), use quiet mode to improve performance:

onecite process large_file.txt --quiet -o output.bib

Memory-Efficient Processing

OneCite processes references sequentially, so it should handle files with thousands of entries. If you encounter memory issues, split your input file:

# Split into chunks
split -l 100 large_file.txt chunk_

# Process each chunk
for chunk in chunk_*; do
    onecite process "$chunk" -o "${chunk}.bib"
done

Error Handling and Recovery

Handling Failed Entries

If OneCite cannot process a reference, it will skip it and continue. Check the output for warnings.

To debug specific entries, process them individually:

echo "your_reference_here" > test.txt
onecite process test.txt

Combining Results

To merge multiple .bib files:

cat file1.bib file2.bib file3.bib > combined.bib

Using with Git for Version Control

Track changes to your bibliography:

git add references.txt results.bib
git commit -m "Update bibliography with new papers"

This allows you to see exactly what changed in your citations over time.

Integration with LaTeX and Overleaf

  1. Export your references to a .bib file:

    onecite process references.txt -o my_references.bib

  2. In your LaTeX file, add:

    \bibliography{my_references}
\bibliographystyle{plain}

  3. Upload to Overleaf and you’re done!

Python API Advanced Usage

For advanced Python usage, see Python API Reference.

Next Steps