Zotero uses the Citation Style Language to configure citation formatting. CSL is a new XML language for citation formatting and is designed to provide a nice balance of power and ease-of-use. It is also designed to be independent of any particular application, document format, or programming language.

The best current source of documentation for CSL is the schema itself, which can be viewed and downloaded from the XBib SVN repository. The page CSL Syntax summary has some basic descriptions which may help. For developers wishing to create new styles, make sure to validate your style against the schema. The following can all be used for validation:

• oXygen XML Editor: excellent commercial real-time validating editor

• emacs nXML mode: excellent free real-time validating mode for emacs

• RNV: very fast extension for expat

Any questions or comments about CSL can be directed to the project developer list.

Once you’ve created a CSL file, you can add it to Zotero by opening it in Firefox, either via File→Open or drag-and-drop, and clicking the page icon in the Firefox address bar. The file must have a .csl extension.

Zotero will also automatically import CSL files served with the text/x-csl content type.

After restarting Firefox, you should be able to select your custom style as an output format in Zotero. If your custom style has general appeal, consider submitting it to the Zotero CSL Repository via SVN.