Biblioscape User Community

I have found that I need to create my own style and I am adding features to it as I find that I need them. However, occasionally when I update the output style Biblioscape strips out all the formatting. Subsequent attempts to restore the formatting then corrupt the output style definition completely. The only way to recover seems to be to delete all fields from the definition and re-enter them and their formatting again from scratch.

For example, I have a journal output style that produces the following for the footnote 'David J. MacLeod, "The Virginal Conception of Our Lord in Matthew 1:18-25," Emmaus Journal 8: 1 (Summer 1999 ): 3-43'. The equivalent Bibliography entry was similar except that it used different punctuation, that is until I spotted a slight error (something to do with the punctuation of the date) and tried to correct it. After pressing update to see the results, Biblioscape had transformed my entry to this 'The Virginal Conception of Our Lord in Matthew 1:18-25Emmaus Journal81: 3-43.' Looking at the definition, all the formatting appears to have been stripped back to its default values, e.g. the name formatting is back at the default and the quotes round the title are no longer in the definition. Trying to restore the formatting to the fields makes matters worse. E.g. defining the title field to start and end with double quotes and the Journal name field to be in italics gives this 'The Virginal Conception of Our Lord in Matthew 1:18-25Emmaus Journal81": 3-43.' Checking the journal name definition it has reverted back to plain text setting again and the title definition no longer has the double quotes in it.

I suspect the problem may be linked to removing elements from the definition (e.g. to remove year and replace it with free-format year) as that seems to be something of a common denominator. Is this a problem with a known cause that I can try and avoid? Is there any way to easily back up and restore definitions?