Capitalization

I think it would be useful if one could turn off the automatic capitalization when capturing items from catalogues. Some languages use their own 'capitalization' (German), others don't use it at all (French). Otherwise, thanks for the useful programme.
  • You can turn off auto-capitalization with the hidden pref extensions.zotero.capitalizeTitles, accessible via about:config, in 1.0.0rc2. There are also a couple new text transform options (lowercase, title case) in the context menu of certain fields.
  • I found this one when searching for "capitalization". I thought I'll post the question here as it is somehow related, but not exactly. My question is, is it possible to turn off automatic capitalization for certain style (e.g. Chicago) as for now it will capitalize all words (and I work mostly with non English citations where the capitalization is not needed).

    Using: Z 1.0.2; FF 2.0.0.11; Ubuntu 7.10
  • edited January 30, 2008
    Please use Chicago styles in the Dev Styles section at http://www.zotero.org/styles/ --those don't capitalize titles. These styles will become public when the next version of Zotero comes out.
  • Could someone explain to me how I can prevent Zotero to capitalize automatically when I capture a title from Worldcat of another catalogue? I am using version 1.0.3. Thnak you.
  • @mclebailly - read the second message in this thread.
  • I did, but I did not manage to do this! It is not as simple as it appears to be, please help me!
  • 1) Type about:config in the Firefox location bar (where you type web addresses) and hit Enter.

    2) Find extensions.zotero.capitalizeTitles in the list. You can type "capitalize" in the Filter box to find it quickly.

    3) Double-click to toggle the pref between true and false.
  • Thank you very much, now I succeded:-)

    Another question: I work a lot with the catalogue of the Koninlijke Bibliotheek, which has a reference-manager export possibililty, and indeed Zotero captures the title immediately when you hit the export-facility, but it capures titles as webpages instead of books and loses information along the way because of this. Is there a way to change this?
  • Is there a way to change all the authors' information to title case?

    Some websites have them listed as all caps. I create bibliographies using Zotero and then export them as RIS for my boss to use in EndNote. Zotero grabs authors and titles in whatever form they are visible on the web, and exports them in the same way. EndNote assumes that whatever it is importing (RIS file in this instance) is already in the correct form and doesn't change it. The end result is having to change many references by hand. Is there a better way to do this?

    Thanks!
  • I tried to toggle field to "true" in the hidden preferences but it's not working. Zotero captures all titles from WorldCat in lower case; whereas, I need them all in capitals. Can someone help how to set it as a default in Turabian style, please. Thanks.
  • edited May 2, 2010
    meerutwala: capitalizeTitles is the default, so you shouldn't need to toggle anything unless you changed it to begin with. If you're having trouble, provide an example URL.
  • Okay, but even at default setup, Zotero captures in sentence case, rather than Title Case. E.g.: http://www.worldcat.org/title/multicultural-riddle-rethinking-national-ethnic-and-religious-identities/oclc/40408703&referer=brief_results.
    I know I can change it by right clicking on the title field in Zotero, but can't it be set to capture by default?
    Thanks.
  • Actually, it looks like only some translators use the function that follows that pref. But is there a reason you want title case? As various other threads note (do a search for 'sentence case' if you're interested), you're generally better leaving titles in sentence case, since sentence->title case conversion by styles that require it is much easier than the other way around.
  • Dear Dan or to whom it may concern:

    I'm using Windows 7, MS Word 2007, and I'm having problems with "capitalizeTitles". I have been using ZOTERO with Firefox for many years with no problem with case on title books. Recently I tried with ZOTERO 3.0.7 Stand Alone, in Spanish, and by changing in "about:config" capitalizeTitles true/false no change is showing. With Standalone version I have this problem (case in all word of the title, in Spanish, I didn't try with Zotero in English), but no problem (in the same computer) with Firefox Zotero 3.0.7 (in fact, the same citation changes its capitalization of titles when I "refres" with F.Fox version or with Standalone).

    David
  • sorry!!! I didn't change ZOTERO Standalone to Spanish! Now works perfectly
  • edited May 9, 2012
    David - capitalizeTitles affects import not citation generation so you're talking about a different issue than this thread.

    Some styles - including notable Chicago Manual - will use "title case" - i.e. most words capitalized - for citations. This is according to the style manual for English titles. To disable it for non-English titles, add the language for the respective language to the language field in Zotero - e.g. sp-ES for Spanish from Spain (sp alone will do, too - actually anything that doesn't start with "EN" will, though we recommend language codes for future versions.).

    (edit: right - using a non-English locale - which happens when you use Zotero in a different language - has the same effect).
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