Hello,
I would like to make some comments/suggestions and maybe some wishes about the Biblioscape BibTeX export function. Maybe my wishlist is a bit extensive and certainly would require quite some work. BTW, how many Biblioscape and LaTeX users are out there?
At present, there exists a style to export references in the BibTeX format. The result is a rtf file containing a BibTeX database which I have to convert to .txt using MS Word. However, this approach IMHO has some weak points:
1) The BibTeX citekey is always of the form "AUTHOR:YEAR". For my database that produces duplicate citekeys because I have several cases of papers with the same (first) author and the same year of publication. This could be solved by adding some unique field (e. g. the Biblioscape Reference ID) in the BibTeX export style editor, if the "Reference ID" field would be available in the style editor. Then a BibTeX citekey maybe could look like this: MILLER:2004:345. Then it would contain about the same information as the Biblioscape temporary citations used when writing in Word.
2) If the references (especially title and author/editor fields) contain special characters or formattings (for instance umlaut charakters, accented characters, mathematical symbols as in "Si(111) 7×7" or text in sub/superscript as in chemical compounds like BF_3), they appear in the exported BibTeX database as they are, instead of being replaced by their correct TeX sequences. Words (acronyms) written in all-upper case letters are not put in {brackets}, what they should be in order not to be reformatted by BibTeX later. However, most of it may be solved by creating a Word macro of "search-replace" commands.
3) When writing in Word I can use Bibliosidekick to insert a temporary citation or, alternatively, "shoot" it directly from Biblioscape into the manuscript. This function actually is limited to Word or WordPerfect. It would be quite helpful if I could use it together with my LaTeX editor (WinEdt) also (then, of course, the temporary citations would need to look differently like \cite{MILLER:2004:345}). At the moment, I have to resort to using JabRef on the converted database.
Although I can work around most of these issues (except for the "Ref ID" availability in the Output style editor), as I have outlined above, it would make it more user-friendly if there would be some native BibTeX export function that takes care of these issues, along with a Bibliosidekick extended for generating the appropriate LaTeX citation commands. In addition, I have found a webpage which describes a method of generating BibTeX citekeys which are suitable for exchanging BibTeX databases: http://ict.ewi.tudelft.nl/old/html/helpdesk/software/tetex/bibshare. With the current export style this cannot be implemented, but might be taken into consideration if there would be some specialised BibTeX export function (sometime in the future).
I think that's enough of "crazy thoughts" for now. What do you think about that?
Best regards
Kristian
Dear Paul, thanks for your
Dear Paul,
thanks for your reply. I'll answer to your three paragraphs by topic:
1) I'll give the "File As" field a try. But when I try to edit the BibTeX output style, "File As" doesn't appear in the list of available fields (the same as for "Ref ID"). Is there anything I can do to let it appear there?
2) That's actually a good one. There is a a document available on the Internet at http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-a4.pd..., but it's very extensive and lists a lot of rarely used stuff that probably doesn't need to be included. Maybe it's sufficient to include the special characters that can appear in the usual text fonts and the Symbol font, and, of course, the accented characters (table 18 in the aforementioned document).
I dug around a bit on the web. I think the following page lists a lot of the common math symbols that can appear e. g. in paper titles: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/latex_advanced/node14.html. Please note that "math mode" symbols need to be surrounded with $ signs, as in $\times$. In addition, markup sequences, for instance, for sub-/superscript should be processed. Can you provide a list of RTF markup commands that Biblioscape processes? Then I'll look up the corresponding LaTeX commands.
There are also some special characters that may appear in text that have a special meaning in LaTeX, so that they need to be escaped in order to be processed correctly by LaTeX. They are, for instance, listed at http://nwalsh.com/tex/texhelp/ltx-164.html.
In case the listing of special characters becomes too extensive, maybe it's a good idea to include a user-extensible list in Biblioscape.
Thanks for your effort! If I can be of further assistence, please let me know.
Best regards
Kristian
LaTeX export
Hello,
some time ago I started a discussion about LaTeX export here. As I am now in a situation where I need my Biblioscape database in BibTeX form, I started writing something myself using Visual Basic and the Biblioscape ODBC driver for Biblioscape 6.
My "program" is designed roughly after the wishes I have outlined in the previous discussion. I now have it in a state where it can produce usable output, although it still has many rough edges (should I call it "early alpha"?).
Anyway, in case someone is interested in it, I would share it (send me an e-mail, then) - either as a compiled program, or if someone would like to take part in completing it, I would welcome it also. (Please keep in mind that it relies on the Biblioscape (6) ODBC driver - you would have to get it yourself.)
Best regards
Kristian
1. Sorry, the File_as and
1. Sorry, the File_as and Ref_ID fields are only available in Biblioscape version 7.
2. Unlike some other bibliographic software, Biblioscape does not store references data in rich text format except the field Ref_doc. So LaTeX users can enter the special characters and symbols inside curly brackets. Biblioscape won't convert anything inside curly brackets when displayed as formatted references. Since LaTeX users will use TeX engine to do the formatting, that won't matter.
A new project about LaTeX support has been added at http://support.biblioscape.com/project/latex_support
Correction: The "Ref_ID"
Correction: The "Ref_ID" field is available in version 6. But you need to go to "Tools | Options" window, on the "Reference Types" tab, add the label "Reference ID" for all the reference types. Then when you go to style editor, the "Reference ID" field will be available to use.
In order to make sure the BibTeX key is unique in the export BibTeX file, I added Reference ID to the key. So the key will be look like SMITH:1990:ID36. I added the updated styles at http://support.biblioscape.com/flexinode/table/2
Bibtex and Biblioscape
I support the demand for a better integration of Bibtex in Biblioscape. I hope also in next version the export-filter for Bibtex will do his job correctly.
Thank you very much
Claire
1. CiteKey: The field
1. CiteKey: The field "File_as" can be used as citekey. It includes auhtor, year and part of the title.
2. Is there a place on the Web that list all the replacement requirements for BibTex?
3. In the future, we should add an option to generate temp citation for BibTex.