PubMed and NCBI: Cite, Save and Share

The Clipboard provides a place to collect up to 500 items from one or more searches. Items saved to the Clipboard will expire after 8 hours of inactivity.

To add items to the Clipboard:

1. Use the check boxes next to each article in your search to select the items you want to save. You can also choose the select all option to save all of your items.
2. Use the Send to button and choose Clipboard.
3. Selected items will be added to the Clipboard.
4. To view your selections, click the Clipboard link under the Search bar. This link will only appear after one or more items have been added to the Clipboard; the link is not present when the Clipboard is empty.

To delete items from the Clipboard:

• On the Clipboard page, click "Remove from Clipboard" below each item to delete the item from the Clipboard.
• Select one or more items using the check boxes next to each item, then click "Remove selected items."
• To delete all items from the Clipboard, click "Remove all."

More information about the Clipboard:

• Citations added to the Clipboard are marked with the message "Item in Clipboard" in search results.
• The maximum number of items that can be sent to the Clipboard is 500. If you select Clipboard from send to without selecting citations, PubMed will add all (up to 500 citations) of your search results to the Clipboard.
• The Clipboard will not add a citation that is currently in the Clipboard; it will not create duplicate entries.
• Your web browser must accept cookies to use the Clipboard.
• Citations in the Clipboard are represented by the search number #0, which may be used in Boolean search statements. 

Use the Save button to download citations to a text file.

1. Use the check boxes to select citations from your search results or Clipboard. You may move to other pages to continue your selections. If you do not make any selections, you can choose to save “All results on this page” or “All results” from the Save menu.
2. Click Save and choose a Selection and Format from the menu that appears.
   • Selection: The citations you would like to save.
     • Selection: The number of selected items will be shown, for example: Selection (87).
     • All results on this page.
     • All results (up to a maximum of 10,000 citations).
   • Format: Summary (text), PubMed, PMID list, Abstract (text), or CSV.
3. Click Create file.
4. Your web browser will prompt you to save the file on your computer.

More information about saving citations to a file:

• Saving a large set of results may take several minutes.
• To save citations in HTML format, use the "Save" or "Save as" function of your browser and change the file extension to html. When saving as HTML, only those citations displayed on the page will be saved; therefore, consider showing more results.

The Cite button makes it easy to retrieve styled citations that you can copy and paste into a document.

Using the Cite button for an item will open a pop-up window where you can copy the citation formatted in four popular styles: AMA (American Medical Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), or NLM (National Library of Medicine). 

Email citations

1. Use the check boxes to select citations from your search results or Clipboard. You may move to other pages and continue your selections. You may also choose to email all citations shown on the page without making any selections.
2. Click the Email button.
3. Enter an email address, subject line, and any additional text you would like to include in the body of the email. Select which citations to send and the format.
4. Click Send email. The system returns you to your results page and displays a confirmation e-mail sent message.

Saving a Search in My NCBI

1. On any database page, run a search - make sure you are signed in to NCBI.
2. In PubMed, click on "Create alert", located below the search box. If you are using other NCBI databases, click "Save Search".
3. You will be guided to your "My NCBI Saved Searches" page where you may edit the name of the search; up to 100 characters are allowed. The name of the saved search will be included in the Subject line of the automatic e-mail preferences at this time. Or, if you prefer, this can be set up at a later time. Click "Save".
4. If the database you searched supports e-mail updates, you will be prompted to set up automated e-mail preferences at this time. If you prefer, this can also be set up at a later time. Click "Save".

Note:

• For PubMed, your use History numbers in your search, however, PubMed processes from left to right, so order your search statement numbers with this in mind, or use parentheses for nesting.
• Your saved searches will be listed in the "Saved Searches" section of my NCBI. Searches are grouped per database and list the date they were saved for the first time.
• You can save searches through the Recent Activity feature in My NCBI.
• Dates and date ranges are not advisable for saved searches.
• Links to Related Citations cannot be saved in My NCBI.
• Accounts that do not have any activity in two years will be deleted.

The four options to populate My Bibliography collections are:

1. Adding Citation directly from PubMed
2. Adding PubMed Citations in My Bibliography
3. Adding Citations from a File
4. Adding Citations Manually