Next: BibTeX Database Subsets, Previous: Chapterbib and Bibunits, Up: Citations [Contents][Index]

### 4.5 Citations outside LaTeX

The command `reftex-citation` can also be executed outside a LaTeX buffer. This can be useful to reference articles in the mail buffer and other documents. You should not enter `reftex-mode` for this, just execute the command. The list of BibTeX files will in this case be taken from the variable `reftex-default-bibliography`. Setting the variable `reftex-cite-format` to the symbol `locally` does a decent job of putting all relevant information about a citation directly into the buffer. Here is the lisp code to add the `C-c [` binding to the mail buffer. It also provides a local binding for `reftex-cite-format`.

    (add-hook 'mail-setup-hook
              (lambda () (define-key mail-mode-map "\C-c["
                           (lambda ()
                             (interactive)
                             (let ((reftex-cite-format 'locally))
                               (reftex-citation))))))