As we announced back in April, the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style will be published in September. That’s the official publication month for the printed book, and copies have already started rolling off the presses. But if you subscribe to CMOS Online, you don’t have to wait any longer.

In fact, the 18th edition is here today!—and like the book jacket, it’s yellow (or partly yellow at least). Longtime subscribers will find that the site works mostly the same as before. New and old users alike will get the benefit of all the updates that have gone into the latest edition.

To find out more, check out “What’s New in the 18th Edition” or just start clicking around. If you don’t have a subscription, we offer a 30-day free trial.

What’s New, and What Isn’t

In addition to the content changes for the 18th edition (which are the same online as in the printed book), there are some minor updates to how we present things at CMOS Online.

The most noticeable change is that numbered figures and tables are now presented in line with the text rather than in separate windows or tabs. You can still get to the figures and tables from their respective lists at the top of the main contents page (and non-HTML figures can still be opened in a new tab). But each figure or table now appears within the paragraph that introduces it, which is more like how they’ve always been presented in print.

And the numbered tables (plus a few of the numbered figures) are now formatted as HTML text rather than as images and PDF, a change designed to make them more accessible. Our popular hyphenation guide is also now presented as HTML (under paragraph 7.96), making it not only more accessible but also easier to search along with the rest of the contents of the Manual.

You’ll also notice some new typefaces (mainly Source Serif and Public Sans) and a refreshed design. (We’ve also given Shop Talk a minor makeover, borrowing fonts and colors from CMOS Online.) But mostly things should work as before, from the Search box to the menus to the pages under Help & Tools.

And don’t overlook the index—a detailed record of the Manual’s contents prepared once again by a professional indexer. It’s the same index as in the printed book, but paragraph numbers and other locators are linked directly to the content. If search fails to get you where you need to be, the index is always there.

What About Previous Editions?

For those of you currently working with the 17th edition, you can keep doing so. The 17th edition will be available from CMOS Online (from the top menu) for the life of the 18th, and it will continue to work (and look) just as it did before. The 16th edition, however, has now been taken offline.

Whether you’re a current subscriber working on a deadline or just here to look around, we hope you’ll find lots to keep you engaged (and informed) at CMOS Online. If you have any questions—or if you run into any problems—you can email us at cmoshelpdesk@press.uchicago.edu or call us at 1‑877‑705‑1878 (US and Canada) or 1-773-753-3347 (International).

And if you have a question or a suggestion about the new content, you can submit it to our Q&A.

Meanwhile, happy browsing!

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