In the Chrome Web StoreACS Citation Generator help and support
Fixes for the most common problems when creating ACS style references with ACS Citation Generator. If your problem is not here, email support and we will look into it.
First things to try
- Open the article page itself, not a search results or table of contents page, then click the extension icon.
- If the page gives no result, paste the article’s DOI, PubMed ID or ISBN into the box at the top of the popup.
- Check that you are online: DOI, PubMed and ISBN lookups need CrossRef, PubMed or Open Library.
- Use Enter details manually for any source the page or a lookup cannot fill in.
Common problems and fixes
“This page can't be read by extensions”
Chrome does not let extensions read some pages, such as chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store and pages that block extensions. Paste the DOI, PMID, ISBN or URL into the box at the top of the popup, or click Enter details manually. For a PDF open in Chrome, the extension still tries the DOI in the address bar.
“No citation data found on this page”
The page does not publish the bibliographic metadata the extension reads, so it opens a form with the URL and title filled in. Add the authors and other details and click Create citation, or paste the article’s DOI instead, which usually gives a complete reference.
DOI not found or “registered with DataCite”
DOIs are looked up in CrossRef only. If CrossRef “has no record”, check the DOI for typos. DOIs from DataCite (Zenodo, figshare, arXiv and other repositories) cannot be looked up, so the extension opens the form with the DOI filled in for you to complete.
The journal abbreviation is wrong
Click Edit on the reference and correct the Journal abbreviation field. Your edit is remembered for that journal and used for every later reference; you can see and remove saved abbreviations under Settings, in Your journal abbreviations.
“My bibliography holds up to 50 references”
The bibliography has room for 50 references. Download it as .bib or .ris to keep a copy, then remove entries you no longer need, or click Clear list to start a new one.
Italics and bold are lost when I paste
Copy puts formatted text on the clipboard, which Word and Google Docs keep; plain text editors and some web forms drop it. Paste with the editor’s normal paste, not “paste as plain text”, or use Copy plain text when you want text without formatting.
“Couldn't copy to the clipboard”
The clipboard was not available when you pressed the button, which can happen when the popup is not focused. Click inside the popup and press Copy again.
“CrossRef is not responding” or “Can't reach CrossRef”
The lookup got no answer within 15 seconds, or there was no connection. Check your internet connection and try again in a minute; when a page lookup fails, the extension shows the data from the page alone and says so.
The same article appears once even though I added it twice
References with the same DOI are merged, so the list holds one entry per article. Empty fields of the existing entry are filled in from the new one, and the popup shows “Already in the list — merged with the existing entry”.
Your data
ACS Citation Generator keeps your bibliography, settings and edited journal abbreviations in Chrome’s local extension storage on this computer only; they are not synced and not sent anywhere. To back up the bibliography, use Download .bib or Download .ris in My bibliography. To clear it, use Clear list; edited abbreviations are removed one by one under Settings. Removing the extension deletes all of this data.
When you write to us
- The address of the article page, or the DOI, PubMed ID or ISBN you entered.
- The reference the extension produced and what you expected instead.
- The exact message the popup showed, and the “Data:” line under the reference (CrossRef, PubMed, Open Library or this page).
- The extension name and its version from
chrome://extensions. - Your Chrome version from
chrome://settings/helpand your operating system. - What you did, what you expected and what happened instead.
- A screenshot, if the problem is visible on the screen.