CHEST-Papyrus Homepage

CHEST-Papyrus is a discussion group on the mailbase listserver. It exists to support users of Research Software Design's Papyrus bibliographic database, particularly those working in Higher Education in the UK.

Mailbase provides an archive of all messages sent to the list in the previous year. It is also possible to perform a WAIS keyword search of the previous year's messages together with the CHEST-Papyrus FAQ. The FAQ incorporates information from messages more than a year old which are not covered by the search service, and is revised regularly. The latest version is number 15, which is 60K text file. A hypertext edition of an older version (number 11) is held on this site.

The CHEST-Papyrus ftp archive is mounted on this server. It contains a collection of import and export formats contributed by subscribers. These are for Papyrus 7, the current PC version. If you are trying out Papyrus 8, which is only available for Mac, you will need to follow the conversion instructions. The authors of Papyrus, Research Software Design, also have an ftp archive. Users in the Americas should probably use the actual site in the USA. For those in Europe, it is mirrored as part of the CHEST-Papyrus archive. There are various interesting things. In particular, there is a report on the status of the versions of Papyrus currently under development. However, please note that the latest versions available under the CHEST deal in the UK is currently version 7.0.16c for DOS (which also works under Windows 3.xx, Windows '95, Windows NT4 and Windows 2000) and 8.0.8 for Mac. The CHEST issues section of the FAQ describes how and when updates are announced and distributed. If you have 7.0.12 for DOS or later and need the new features of 7.0.16c for DOS, a range of upgrade packs is available on the ftp archive:

The major changes for 7.0.16c are:

  1. We have now fixed ALL remaining problems with Text Extract and Word 97. (At least, no testers or previously problematic Word 97 documents have so far turned up any residual issues.)
  2. Word 2000 is now supported by Text Extract. However, this is not based on the official specifications, which are expected shortly and any changes will be incorporated into 7.0.17.
  3. Importing from the ISI Web of Science has been improved, with a new import format ("WEB SCI 2000") and a small change inside of PAPYRUS's import function.
    The WEB SCI 2000 format can be found in the current edition of the IMPORT.FLB format library.

Maggie Shapland of the University of Bristol Computing Service has prepared a series of tutorials and reference materials for Papyrus:

The main difference between the Windows 3.1 and NT version is the use of the clip board when citing. The NT version also contains more web related information.

I was asked to give a demonstration of Papyrus to the UK OnLine User Group in 1997. There are two documents here:

The lecture notes.
Instructions for using Papyrus with LaTeX.

List members trying to remember how to use the list, or wondering why no one is replying to their messages, may find the introductory message of use.

Methods of citing electronic information are regularly discussed on this and other lists. A collection of discussions on the subject is in preparation for publication here.

Last Revised 19 May 2010
WebManager is the ListOwner of CHEST-Papyrus
N.B. Please only contact the WebManager/ListOwner concerning the accuracy of, and links on, these pages or the operation of the list. Questions about Papyrus not answered by the various electronic information sources should go to the list or to your local computer support staff. Thanks.

Bernard Treves Brown

SCEAS, University of Manchester. United Kingdom.