Next: What Supercite Does Not Do, Up: Introduction [Contents][Index]

### 1.1 Usage Overview

Typical usage is as follows. You want to reply or followup to a message in your MUA. You will probably hit `r` (i.e., “reply”) or `f` (i.e., “forward”) to begin composing the reply. In response, the MUA will create a reply buffer and initialize the outgoing mail headers appropriately. The body of the reply will usually be empty at this point. You now decide that you would like to include part of the original message in your reply. To do this, you yank the original message into the reply buffer, typically with a key stroke such as `C-c C-y`. This sequence will invoke an MUA-specific function which fills the body of the reply with the original message and then attributes this text to its author. This is called citing and its effect is to prefix every line from the original message with a special text tag. Most MUAs provide some default style of citing; by using Supercite you gain a wider flexibility in the look and style of citations. Supercite’s only job is to cite the original message.